The Red Devils to throw the Gauchos off their high horse and ride that dark animal into the next round.
2.
cmorenc
My heart says Messi scores or crucially assists on three amazing, immortal highlight-film quality goals to beat Belgium 3-1, but my head says it’s much more likely to be the other way around, with Messi’s one goal not being enough against the deeper Belgian side.
3.
SRW1
Btw, Sueddeutsche reports today that German midfielder Toni Kroos is on his way from Bayern Munich to Real Madrid. There’s kind of a delicious back story to this that will raise all kinds of Schadenfreunde among football fans in Germany, where Bayern is fairly polarizing because they have this tendency to cement their perch at the top of the Bundesliga by always raiding their closest rivals for their best players.
Bayern didn’t want to sell Kroos, but eventually concluded that they didn’t really have much choice, because as a condition to extent his contract at Bayern Kroos had demanded to be put into the highest pay grade, which the bigwigs at the club saw as an affront and refused. Unfortunately for them, Kroos knew that the way Bayern had persuaded young Mario Goetze to join Bayern from Borussia Dortmund was by paying him at the same level as Bayern stalwarts like Lahm and Schweinsteiger and Goetze had had a kind of mediocre season compared to Kroos last year. Now how did Kroos know about a usually secret details such as Goetze’s salary? Because he has the same agent as Mario Goetze.
4.
SRW1
Question: Will Eden Hazard arrive in Brazil before the flight home?
5.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
My dream for this game is that Messi scores a hat trick and the game is tied 3-3 after 120 minutes. Belgium moves on as Messi is the only Argentine to score from the spot.
And I’ll start early: ga Oranje!
6.
Amir Khalid
A commenter alerted the Guardian live-blog to this Mexican video. (Caution: subtitles are NSFW; so is the audio, if any Spanish speakers are nearby.) I do hope the singer isn’t as young as she looks.
7.
Tripod
It looks as if Argentina is playing the Land of Giants.
Um, the first ten minutes or so have been a BIG surprise. This isn’t going to be the walkover for Belgium most had predicted.
12.
Amir Khalid
We have a good start to the match.
13.
Randy Paul aka Randinho
Classic Higuain type of goal.
14.
Mike E
Heh, Italian refs…somebody will sleep with the fishes.
15.
Amir Khalid
These are the knockout stages. Recent form doesn’t count, only good fortune on the day.
ETA: And don’t forget who dispenses good fortune.
16.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Don’t players at this level practice corner kicks enough not to just boot the ball to the other sideline?
17.
Steeplejack
Just came over after a crackerjack finish to the first stage of the Tour de France Yorkshire (Leeds to Harrogate). Mad dash at the finish and a crash that only took down three riders.
What’s all this, then? Argentina up by one already!
You mean the dark horse will have its head delivered to Marc Wilmots’s chamber?
19.
Onkel Fritze
@Amir Khalid: That video is hilarious. Of course the sentiment reminds me of Uruguay – oh my god, we were robbed, it’s all a big conspiracy – no matter the actual facts. Plus, the Mexicans as paragons of virtuosity is also pretty funny, them playing with fucking Rafa Marquez.
20.
Tripod
I’m not expecting them to hold on for ninety. Which is to say, señor Messi is going to have to conjure some magic.
21.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Tripod: Belgium only looks so tall because of Fellaini’s hair.
22.
Mike E
Red#8 strikes me as 7′ tall Eugene Levy character. Fellani? I feel an SCTV skit is fixin’ to break out. “Don’t talk to me, I’m fantasising!”
23.
Randy Paul aka Randinho
Anyone ever seen Tin-Tin and Kevin de Bruyne in the same place at the same time?
24.
Alex S.
Those teams have been the masters of doing just enough to score one more goal than the other team. Maybe they can push each other to their full potential. But for now, it’s Belgium’s turn.
25.
SRW1
The Rode Duivels appear to sharpen their tridents.
They’ll have to remember looking up every now and then, though, what the celestially striped ones are doing.
Wow. Messi created this free kick out of nothing. By which I don’t mean a dive, just that the Belgians would have had the ball from a lesser player without fouling.
33.
Mike E
He made a Messi of that.
34.
Valdivia
@SRW1: isn’t it true that the DT Pep Guardiola is also kind of polarizing? I thought he was great when he was with Barca though and imagine he’ll take over the Soanish side soon.
@Amir Khalid: Or Umlaüt. Any of the three. I just think words should practice what they preach, but words like “Umlaut” and “accent aigu” hypocritically leave the actual practice to other words without shouldering their share of the load.
I don’t think Guardiola is polarizing among the players at Bayern. The club has stockpiled too many attacking midfielders and there was some disquiet about playing minutes. Where there was more of a negative reactions was among Bayern fans about Guardiola’s insistence on possession football after the losses against Real Madrid in the CL quater final. There’s no evidence that Guardiola won’t be at Bayen next seaon.
38.
Culture of Truth
How can you bet against Messi?
39.
Mike E
Wow, half. Brisk. Compared to BRA v COL this match is a delight.
@SRW1:
Thanks for filling me in. I saw tons of comments by Bayern fans in the past weeks about him so wondered what the issue was. Was he this polarizing when he was in charge of Barca?
44.
burnspbesq
Belgium would be a lot more dangerous if they had even one actual outside back.
45.
burnspbesq
Lavezzi looks like he can get to the endline any time he wants. He also looks like he has no idea what to do when he gets there.
Don’t really know about the Barca fans, though my impression was that they adored Guardiola. Among the players at the club it appears that Zlatan Ibrahimovic was the only one to really fall out with Guardiola. Which is why Ibrahimovic din’t last beyond that one season at Barca.
BTW, Randinho is a Barca fan, he probably knows better about Guardiola’s standing among the fans there.
47.
Yatsuno
@Amir Khalid: Watch your language mister! Actually I love that word.
48.
Valdivia
@SRW1:
That was my impression too re the Barca fans. At least now when I see the tweets against him I have a context! Thank you.
Seems Argentina came ready to play today.
49.
Amir Khalid
Le Figaro reports that Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano has been hospitalised in very serious condition after a heart attack.
Hazard off. I guess we can now conclude that his slump of form at the end of the season in Chelsea was not because of his holding back for the WC in Brazil.
54.
SRW1
The way Belgium play reminds me of the German saying “Der Geist was willig, aber des Fleisch war schwach”. (Which according to an old joke translates into English and back as the culinary verdict of “Der Schnaps war gut, aber das Steak war Scheisse”.)
55.
Tripod
They need to get Kasey Keller out of the booth. He’s lucid and a student of the game. Ex-jocko color guys need to wax pointlessly about nothing.
56.
Amir Khalid
The Guardian live-blogger is so bored, he’s posting in verse:
77 min: Belgium have the will
but not the way.
No problem for Argentina
to keep them at bay.
57.
Onkel Fritze
I guess the pinches holandeses will have to take care of Messi et al.
58.
trollhattan
This the same Belgium that had eleventy dozen shots on goal against the US? We really don’t compete on this level.
59.
SRW1
Did they forget to tell van Buyten that the offside rule is also in force at the other end of the pitch?
So, three games in the quater finals and in each of them the team that scores an early goal goes through, on two occasions with a 1-0.
Maybe if Costa Rica have an extra cup of coffee and surprise the Dutch with a blistering start they can make it to the semis. There has got to be at least one upset in the knock-out rounds, doesn’t there?!
@SRW1:
As CR representative I’ve sent your strategic recommendation to the technical team!
70.
scav
@Amir Khalid: Adoration, what passes for respect here, and the occasional out of focus cat photo not enough for you? I’m glad SRW1 seems to have better connections, I can only throw wordplay into volcanoes, and even they are of the baking soda and vinegar species, this being the part of the country where the atlas spine is.
71.
Amir Khalid
@scav:
We football deities are a greedy bunch. Where do you think FIFA learned to be like that?
72.
Cacti
Hope Belgium doesn’t get mad and decide to break Messi’s back.
73.
Mike E
Univision showing Neymar being loaded onto a helicopter at his house…he did flash a thumbs up from the stretcher, not sure what the deal is.
But one shouldn’t imply malice when a player takes his eyes off the ball and throws a flying knee in the middle of another player’s back.
77.
pseudonymous in nc
Similar to Brazil-Colombia, in that Argentina managed to neutralise the counter-attacking momentum that the Belgians had in earlier matches, and you can’t take as many risks attacking when Messi’s on the other side. You could see the frustration in the later minutes with multiple offsides and the Route One stuff.
@pseudonymous in nc: I fractured my T-6 in a wreck in 1975. At that time the state of the art was to peel open my back, remove the muscles from the entire area and but harrington rods above and below the fractured vertarbrea. They also took a bone graph off my hip and fused the cracked bone. My wife had disc surgery last year and the bones said what they did to me would be considered barbaric. If he didn’t fracture it to the point of leaking spinal fluid or severing the cord he’ll most likely be fine. I’m not minimizing it but they have come a long way in treatment of such injuries.
80.
scav
Honestly, that one game might have in some way have tainted the well for a lot of the rest of the games — in so far as there’s going to a lot of residual arguing and sniping and whatever, no matter who is actively playing. And the style of game being played this round doesn’t seem to helping either to my poor mind. I know it’s all about winning by now but there it is. All gone grubby. sad. ah well. is what it is.
81.
Valdivia
:( where’s the CR thread???
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SRW1
The Red Devils to throw the Gauchos off their high horse and ride that dark animal into the next round.
cmorenc
My heart says Messi scores or crucially assists on three amazing, immortal highlight-film quality goals to beat Belgium 3-1, but my head says it’s much more likely to be the other way around, with Messi’s one goal not being enough against the deeper Belgian side.
SRW1
Btw, Sueddeutsche reports today that German midfielder Toni Kroos is on his way from Bayern Munich to Real Madrid. There’s kind of a delicious back story to this that will raise all kinds of Schadenfreunde among football fans in Germany, where Bayern is fairly polarizing because they have this tendency to cement their perch at the top of the Bundesliga by always raiding their closest rivals for their best players.
Bayern didn’t want to sell Kroos, but eventually concluded that they didn’t really have much choice, because as a condition to extent his contract at Bayern Kroos had demanded to be put into the highest pay grade, which the bigwigs at the club saw as an affront and refused. Unfortunately for them, Kroos knew that the way Bayern had persuaded young Mario Goetze to join Bayern from Borussia Dortmund was by paying him at the same level as Bayern stalwarts like Lahm and Schweinsteiger and Goetze had had a kind of mediocre season compared to Kroos last year. Now how did Kroos know about a usually secret details such as Goetze’s salary? Because he has the same agent as Mario Goetze.
SRW1
Question: Will Eden Hazard arrive in Brazil before the flight home?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
My dream for this game is that Messi scores a hat trick and the game is tied 3-3 after 120 minutes. Belgium moves on as Messi is the only Argentine to score from the spot.
And I’ll start early: ga Oranje!
Amir Khalid
A commenter alerted the Guardian live-blog to this Mexican video. (Caution: subtitles are NSFW; so is the audio, if any Spanish speakers are nearby.) I do hope the singer isn’t as young as she looks.
Tripod
It looks as if Argentina is playing the Land of Giants.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
No! Wrong Argentine!
SRW1
Oh my, I jinxed the Rode Duivels. My bad.
Alex S.
@SRW1:
Now Argentina is going to win easily.
cmorenc
Um, the first ten minutes or so have been a BIG surprise. This isn’t going to be the walkover for Belgium most had predicted.
Amir Khalid
We have a good start to the match.
Randy Paul aka Randinho
Classic Higuain type of goal.
Mike E
Heh, Italian refs…somebody will sleep with the fishes.
Amir Khalid
These are the knockout stages. Recent form doesn’t count, only good fortune on the day.
ETA: And don’t forget who dispenses good fortune.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Don’t players at this level practice corner kicks enough not to just boot the ball to the other sideline?
Steeplejack
Just came over after a crackerjack finish to the first stage of the Tour de
FranceYorkshire (Leeds to Harrogate). Mad dash at the finish and a crash that only took down three riders.What’s all this, then? Argentina up by one already!
SRW1
@Mike E:
You mean the dark horse will have its head delivered to Marc Wilmots’s chamber?
Onkel Fritze
@Amir Khalid: That video is hilarious. Of course the sentiment reminds me of Uruguay – oh my god, we were robbed, it’s all a big conspiracy – no matter the actual facts. Plus, the Mexicans as paragons of virtuosity is also pretty funny, them playing with fucking Rafa Marquez.
Tripod
I’m not expecting them to hold on for ninety. Which is to say, señor Messi is going to have to conjure some magic.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Tripod: Belgium only looks so tall because of Fellaini’s hair.
Mike E
Red#8 strikes me as 7′ tall Eugene Levy character. Fellani? I feel an SCTV skit is fixin’ to break out. “Don’t talk to me, I’m fantasising!”
Randy Paul aka Randinho
Anyone ever seen Tin-Tin and Kevin de Bruyne in the same place at the same time?
Alex S.
Those teams have been the masters of doing just enough to score one more goal than the other team. Maybe they can push each other to their full potential. But for now, it’s Belgium’s turn.
SRW1
The Rode Duivels appear to sharpen their tridents.
They’ll have to remember looking up every now and then, though, what the celestially striped ones are doing.
Yatsuno
@Randy Paul aka Randinho: It would be irresponsible not to speculate…
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Di Maria’s out. I didn’t see what happened to him.
Amir Khalid
Ooh, Angel Di Maria’s off injured.
Mike E
@Amir Khalid: Quad contusion?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Linguistics question: shouldn’t the word “umlaut” actually have one?
SRW1
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Nope, but it should be capitalized.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Wow. Messi created this free kick out of nothing. By which I don’t mean a dive, just that the Belgians would have had the ball from a lesser player without fouling.
Mike E
He made a Messi of that.
Valdivia
@SRW1: isn’t it true that the DT Pep Guardiola is also kind of polarizing? I thought he was great when he was with Barca though and imagine he’ll take over the Soanish side soon.
The Argentinians are playing strong today.
Amir Khalid
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Ümlaut? Umläut?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Amir Khalid: Or Umlaüt. Any of the three. I just think words should practice what they preach, but words like “Umlaut” and “accent aigu” hypocritically leave the actual practice to other words without shouldering their share of the load.
SRW1
@Valdivia:
I don’t think Guardiola is polarizing among the players at Bayern. The club has stockpiled too many attacking midfielders and there was some disquiet about playing minutes. Where there was more of a negative reactions was among Bayern fans about Guardiola’s insistence on possession football after the losses against Real Madrid in the CL quater final. There’s no evidence that Guardiola won’t be at Bayen next seaon.
Culture of Truth
How can you bet against Messi?
Mike E
Wow, half. Brisk. Compared to BRA v COL this match is a delight.
Amir Khalid
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
German doesn’t have that diphthong, sorry.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Amir Khalid: Well it should make an exception.
burnspbesq
@Amir Khalid:
That video is pure genius.
Valdivia
@SRW1:
Thanks for filling me in. I saw tons of comments by Bayern fans in the past weeks about him so wondered what the issue was. Was he this polarizing when he was in charge of Barca?
burnspbesq
Belgium would be a lot more dangerous if they had even one actual outside back.
burnspbesq
Lavezzi looks like he can get to the endline any time he wants. He also looks like he has no idea what to do when he gets there.
SRW1
@Valdivia:
Don’t really know about the Barca fans, though my impression was that they adored Guardiola. Among the players at the club it appears that Zlatan Ibrahimovic was the only one to really fall out with Guardiola. Which is why Ibrahimovic din’t last beyond that one season at Barca.
BTW, Randinho is a Barca fan, he probably knows better about Guardiola’s standing among the fans there.
Yatsuno
@Amir Khalid: Watch your language mister! Actually I love that word.
Valdivia
@SRW1:
That was my impression too re the Barca fans. At least now when I see the tweets against him I have a context! Thank you.
Seems Argentina came ready to play today.
Amir Khalid
Le Figaro reports that Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano has been hospitalised in very serious condition after a heart attack.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
God, the haircuts at this World Cup are hideous.
Mike E
Kompany looks gassed.
Steeplejack
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
“Well, he’s Jake from State Farm.”
SRW1
Hazard off. I guess we can now conclude that his slump of form at the end of the season in Chelsea was not because of his holding back for the WC in Brazil.
SRW1
The way Belgium play reminds me of the German saying “Der Geist was willig, aber des Fleisch war schwach”. (Which according to an old joke translates into English and back as the culinary verdict of “Der Schnaps war gut, aber das Steak war Scheisse”.)
Tripod
They need to get Kasey Keller out of the booth. He’s lucid and a student of the game. Ex-jocko color guys need to wax pointlessly about nothing.
Amir Khalid
The Guardian live-blogger is so bored, he’s posting in verse:
Onkel Fritze
I guess the pinches holandeses will have to take care of Messi et al.
trollhattan
This the same Belgium that had eleventy dozen shots on goal against the US? We really don’t compete on this level.
SRW1
Did they forget to tell van Buyten that the offside rule is also in force at the other end of the pitch?
Baud
@trollhattan:
We wore them down.
Valdivia
@Onkel Fritze: hey maybe it will be little Costa Rica ;)
James E. Powell
@trollhattan:
Agreed. The US team looked like the teams that barely make the playoffs in the Big Three US sports.
And yet, a better bounce for Wondolowski and they’d be the ones losing to Argentina right now.
Mike E
@trollhattan: They fail the eye test, certainly.
SRW1
So, three games in the quater finals and in each of them the team that scores an early goal goes through, on two occasions with a 1-0.
Maybe if Costa Rica have an extra cup of coffee and surprise the Dutch with a blistering start they can make it to the semis. There has got to be at least one upset in the knock-out rounds, doesn’t there?!
Amir!!!
trollhattan
Belgian keeper es muy macho.
Amir Khalid
@SRW1:
What am I bid?
Steeplejack
That was an oddly unsatisfying game. Clunky.
SRW1
@Amir Khalid:
Gabriela said that she wasn’t disinclined.
Valdivia
@SRW1:
As CR representative I’ve sent your strategic recommendation to the technical team!
scav
@Amir Khalid: Adoration, what passes for respect here, and the occasional out of focus cat photo not enough for you? I’m glad SRW1 seems to have better connections, I can only throw wordplay into volcanoes, and even they are of the baking soda and vinegar species, this being the part of the country where the atlas spine is.
Amir Khalid
@scav:
We football deities are a greedy bunch. Where do you think FIFA learned to be like that?
Cacti
Hope Belgium doesn’t get mad and decide to break Messi’s back.
Mike E
Univision showing Neymar being loaded onto a helicopter at his house…he did flash a thumbs up from the stretcher, not sure what the deal is.
Corner Stone
@Cacti: That would be a pity.
Corner Stone
The picture ESPN is using for Kvitova makes her look like a supermodel.
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
Yes, quite a pity.
But one shouldn’t imply malice when a player takes his eyes off the ball and throws a flying knee in the middle of another player’s back.
pseudonymous in nc
Similar to Brazil-Colombia, in that Argentina managed to neutralise the counter-attacking momentum that the Belgians had in earlier matches, and you can’t take as many risks attacking when Messi’s on the other side. You could see the frustration in the later minutes with multiple offsides and the Route One stuff.
@Mike E:
He’s being flown back to São Paulo for further treatment. Brazil is in a mixture of mourning and celebrity crazy.
Alex S.
@Cacti:
Maybe not Belgium… but the Netherlands might try.
raven
@pseudonymous in nc: I fractured my T-6 in a wreck in 1975. At that time the state of the art was to peel open my back, remove the muscles from the entire area and but harrington rods above and below the fractured vertarbrea. They also took a bone graph off my hip and fused the cracked bone. My wife had disc surgery last year and the bones said what they did to me would be considered barbaric. If he didn’t fracture it to the point of leaking spinal fluid or severing the cord he’ll most likely be fine. I’m not minimizing it but they have come a long way in treatment of such injuries.
scav
Honestly, that one game might have in some way have tainted the well for a lot of the rest of the games — in so far as there’s going to a lot of residual arguing and sniping and whatever, no matter who is actively playing. And the style of game being played this round doesn’t seem to helping either to my poor mind. I know it’s all about winning by now but there it is. All gone grubby. sad. ah well. is what it is.
Valdivia
:( where’s the CR thread???