I’m loving the acoustic NR. Just a great song whichever version you hear.

The more I listen to the cleaned up SOYL the more I wonder why it didn’t make it on the original AFD. It’s a killer little rock tune.

Great start to the knockouts. What a game. France starting to look quite good. They were my pick before the tournament, so much talent if everything clicks. Mbappe reminded me of a young Ronaldo (Brazil).

Could be another cracker with Portugal v Uruguay.

What a crazy World Cup this has been so far!

Germany out in the group stage is unthinkable. Shame out resident Germany fan doesn’t seem to post anymore

I’ve enjoyed watching England so far. Not getting carried away as we’ve beaten nobody of consequence but we’re are quite good to watch which hasn’t been the case for at least 15 years.

Literally no idea who’s going to win this, it’s wide open. No team has looked amazing so far but Croatia have looked the strongest. A team with Modric and Rakitic in could be seriously tough to beat.

The US usually qualify, 86 was the last time they didn’t.

Qualifying is split basically in to continents so in European qualifying you have about 8 groups of 5 or 6. A team will play everyone in their group twice and the top team qualifys. The 2nd placed teams are then drawn against each other in playoffs and the winner of each of those games qualifys as well.

The US have to qualify against the other teams in North and Central America and the Carribean region. The format is a bit different for their federation but it’s the same sort of idea. Ultimately you end up with a group where the top 3 qualify to the WC and 4th have a playoff against another continents playoff side (in this case it was Honduras v Australia).

Better explained here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FI … (CONCACAF)

US must have been pretty poor this time round to not qualify as it’s not a strong region football-wise. Usually it’s US, Mexico and someone else who generally qualify.

England off to a winning start, although we made hard work of it as usual. Reasons to be cheerful though, we look a quick team which could cause teams problems.