DJHazey

Aitana swoons with a lovely off-angle strike. Amazing finish.

60% chance of showers Sunday.

Caught the highlights (was at work when it occurred) -- that penalty was an absolute gift, I must say. Should've gone to the penalties..

Hoping it ends up England vs. Germany.

Does Chelsea even have a chance?

I think Norway winning outright in the home opener for the Swiss is minor upset and Finland over Iceland was definitely decent one.

I'll go 11 please.

Wow, Auckland will be telling that story for generations.

I tend to remember Ireland struggling in the heat versus Italy or Mexico in 1994, but I was only 11 at the time. Must have been the Mexico game they lost 2-1 played in Orlando, Florida in late June is oppressive levels of humidity.

Drier heat in the South-west and pleasant on the west coast though. It's actually the east where humidity is the worst though.

It's such a scam and sadly seems to be an American thing where stadiums say 'no bottles of beverage or food' and claim it's a safety thing. Okay so you don't want me throwing bottles I brought in, but I'm more than welcome to throw the ones I bought inside the stadium, make it make sense! (I'm not advocating throwing anything, but if they're calling it safety, what are they trying to prevent exactly?)

It becomes a legal situation if someone has issues with heat exhaustion/stroke.

1 hour ago, Mack said:

Would be great when watching the highlights for Channel 4 to do a proper run down of the grid before the race. When it's North American races, their coverage seems to be very rushed.

True, I often rely on YouTube Highlight which uses the same Sky Sports coverage of the race us Americans get on TV via simulcast. However, I make it a habit to watch the qualifying highlights first and know the lineup going in.

Auckland City are apparently an amateur club according to New Zealand resident who posted about it on reddit, who won their National League and was the best choice to have an actual Oceania league member. They are often confused with Auckland FC who play in the Australian A-League and are counted as Asia, along with Wellington Phoenix. If they had been here instead, then it would not have been 10-0.

Yes until Curaçao proves it in higher competition, it has to be called Jamaica's Group B to lose, so I'd agree Costa Rica/Jamaica/Panama.

Honduras and Curaçao for the intercontinental playoffs.

Costa Rica/Honduras in the same group is great too, those matches will be absolute knockdown, drag-out fights. Panama should cruise though their group. TnT will also be a challenge for Curaçao/Jamaica.

1 hour ago, LewisGT said:

I’m not sure how but they manage to work it so Curaçao was in pot B in instead of Haiti and it means we have confirmed that there will be Caribbean involvement in the World Cup as we have a fully Caribbean group B

Reading that CONCACAF stays being iconic because they saw the 5-1 Curaçao over Haiti result and decided to use 'projected' July 9th FIFA Rankings instead so that Curaçao could switch pots with Haiti. This is great because it prioritizes current strength of the teams based on recent real results. As I stated before, of these 12 teams in the round I would argue Curaçao is the 3rd or 4th best nation, right there with Jamaica (Panama and Costa Rica being #1 and #2) so this will be the perfect test between the Caribbean nations.

Got to love FIFA ranking sometimes, Curacao dismantles Haiti 5-1 and has been better in recent years than them and El Salvador/Honduras for that matter; yet are in a lower pot.

That is devastating for Palestine. :(

Who has Jordan as the only Arab nation to advance from this round? If that was a bet, someone won a pot.

And I thought us Americans were running bad (3-1 and 4-0 losses at home to Turkey and Switzerland) -- yeah at least you aren't quite in the pit we are lol.

I wondered what happened in that ghastly 1-0 match vs. Andorra. Imagine the press if that had been San Marino, though Andorra isn't much better.

Uzbekistan finishing things off in style, crushing Qatar 3-0 at home which was likely coronation/celebration as much as it was a football match. If they hadn't fumbled a potential win in the final minutes in Doha, they might have won the group entirely. (As long as Iran gets the expected win over North Korea today, they'll be second, not that 1st/2nd place matters in the long run)

I'd be for it too, but consider their remaining schedule:

at Uruguay

at Argentina

hosting Colombia.

They'll be fortunate to get 3-4 points from that. Likely as low as 1 point total.

The scoreline more than anything, but Croatia beating anyone is far from a surprise in itself.

Paraguay is always that one South American country that is going to steal some surprising points, especially on away games where they're unfavored going in. However, they're usually inconsistent in the matches they should do better in, but this time they're putting it all together more.

Also, Paraguay and Ecuador have the toughest venues to play at for a visiting team. La Paz and Quito, which their elevation make it a brutal match if you're not used to that environment. Few places in the world have the home field advantage they do.

I think the problem is only having, what it is three Premier League teams? and a few MLS teams, otherwise only the hardcore football fans over here are going to know any of the other teams other than the other major Champions League level squads.

Nobody knows any of the african/asian/south american teams, so it's hard to get excited about.

It's not like the World Cup where this country will get national support because of the how many cultures are blended amongst our population, so a Japanese-American for example will get excited about going to the Japan match, etc.

I'm happy for Bolivia, who has at least been competitive this go around. They haven't been in the same class as the other nine CONMEBOL nations in several years now.