15 hours ago, Paddington James said:

For me personally if we’re playing them I obviously hope we win, but when they’re playing almost anyone else I hope New Zealand win, mainly due to them being the underdog. Saying that though it probably depends on who they are playing.

I think most Australian ps would be similar.

Prob similar to England Scotland relations, I’d imagine NZ would rather the Aussies are beat.

This will be the first time that Belgium and Iran have played each other in an international match.

Only 3 Meetings between Egypt and New Zealand:

22/03/2024- Egypt 1-0 New Zealand (Friendly)

15/07/1999- Egypt 1-0 New Zealand (Friendly)

10/07/1999- Egypt 1-1 New Zealand (Friendly [Played at Mexico City]

I knew Iran & NZ are long shots to win, but I hope both of them pull upsets and somehow get advance to R32 and beyond over the favourites like Belgium and Egypt.

Yeh I’d like to see Iran do well for the obvious reasons!

No reason why they couldn't, it's an very wide open group.

Trump has tried his best to make it difficult for the players which is a joke.

Belgium (4-2-3-1): Courtois; Meunier, Ngoy, Mechele, De Cuyper; Raskin, Tielemans; Saelemaekers, De Bruyne, Trossard; Lukaku. Subs: Castagne, De Ketelaere, De Winter, Fernandez-Pard0, Witsel, Lammens, Lukébakio, Onana, Penders, Seys, Theate, Vanaken, Moreira.

Iran (5-4-1): Beiranvand; Hardani, Kanani, Khalilzadeh, Nemati, Hajisafi; Rezaeian, Ghoddos, Ezatolahi, Mohebbi; Taremi. Subs: Alipour, Cheshmi, Dargahi, Eiri, Ghayedi, Ghorbani, Hosseini, Hosseinzadeh, Jahanbakhsh, Moghanloo, Mohammadi, Niazmand, Razzaghinia, Torabi, Yousefi.

919 posts this week, an all-time total of posts in an week, just to say an massive thanks to everyone who contributed.

Lukaku booked for Belgium after just three minutes.

Iran have the ball in the next but it is disallowed for offside.

Why didn't they have the drinks break while the offside check was being made?

Just now, Suedehead2 said:

Why didn't they have the drinks break while the offside check was being made?

It would have made sense to, but this is FIFA for you.

Ezatolahi booked for Iran.

Eight minutes of added time to play in this first half.

How has that stayed out for Belgium?

Belgium down to ten men as Ngoy is sent off for apparently denying an goalscoring opportunity.

Belgium, Turkey and Ecuador are playing their own World Cup for who can disappoint more people.