Espana V Crybaby and US of A v Belgium the last 16 continues.

WOW AND WOW again, I am physically and emotionally drained after watching EnGerLand, as a friend said to me, he was sweating like he had played for hundred minutes at altitude and I felt pretty similar. If you have not had a chance, go and watch the highlights. To be honest, I am so spent that today’s offering may be a bit under whelming and for that I apologize in advance if you find it so.

So as predicted, the Viking war band led by the Impressive Haaland duly beat the Samba Kings, and as hoped for, because I did not commit to it, EnGerLand, with the three lions on their shirts, went into the coliseum that is the Azteca and held off the Sombrero clad hordes.

Unlike at the battle of The Alamo, the defenders came out on top, despite playing almost a half with an underload (in joke) of ten players.  This sets up another intriguing clash between EnGerLand and the Vikings in Miami on Saturday night.

Tonight we start with the Iberian Peninsula clash between the third best ranked team in the world, the Flamenco dancers from Espana, facing the seventh ranked team the Cork boys featuring Crybaby Ronaldo from Portugal.

The neighbouring countries have played a lot against each other, in fact this will be the seventh meeting in a world cup dating back as far as 1934 as Espana beat the Cork boys twice including a 9-0 thrashing. I do not expect such a scoreline tonight, but the record stands at five wins for Espana and one draw, in the last meeting between the two in the 2018 world cup in Russia.

The previous meeting before that was in the last 16 in 2010 back in the days when CR7 was in his pomp. 

Espana won one nil but only because of one of the stupidest pieces of play by Nani the cork boys’ winger that caused an amazing CR7 goal to be disallowed. We almost got to see full crybaby mode.

Espana started this tournament slowly and is improving, I watched them beat the Apfel strudel from Osterreich. They barely made it out of third gear but looked very good with more to come.  The Cork boys are lucky to be here, after their scandalous victory over the boys from Kings Landing due to an awful call from the VAR officials, disallowing a perfectly good goal which would have taken the game to penalties.

Espana to win this one, not at a canter but to win.

The second game features the last remaining host nation that being of course the US of A matching up against the Brussel Sprouts from Belgium. This game has already generated extreme controversy due to a very problematic decision from the Evil Empire.

In the last game played by the US of A, Balogun, the star Yankee forward, was somewhat unlucky to be shown a red card for foul play and thus be ineligible for the game tonight. This was done according to due process and within the laws of the game. Yesterday the Evil Empire announced that the decision had been overturned, his red card was suspended for a year, and he would be allowed to play.

Now this is highly irregular, but what made it stink to high heaven was that within minute of the Evil Empire announcing its decision, a certain President Donald Trump tweeted Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice.

Now it just happens that the head of the Evil Empire one Gianni Infantino is a great friend of President Trump, need I say more.

Before the tournament, our dear friend Crybaby Roaldo was suspended for three games for a red card he picked up in a qualifying game which meant he would not have been able to play in the first two games the cork boys played.

But just like Dean Wormer from Faber college, Gianni found a little known codicil in the FIFA rule book allowing them to defer two of the games to a one year suspension and as if by magic, Crybaby was exonerated.

The Brussel Sprouts are justly furious, they come from the home of overreaching bureaucracy and corruption, they can smell a rat or probably spot a bulging envelope when there is one to find.

As I wrote above it was a harsh red card, but you cannot just change the rules to make President Trump happy.

This incident is going to add an edge to the game, it may actually backfire on the US of A as the sprouts are going to come out with all gun’s blazing.

Without Balogun, the US of A probably did not have much chance, his return is a massive boost, again on paper Belgium are a better team, they are ranked 9^th to the US of A ranking of 16th.  I just hope for a good game, I will not be staying up to watch this one.

The two faced each other in the 2014 world cup with the game going to extra time and the US of A goalie making save after save to no avail in the end, as you can see here.

 

 

Tomorrow we will preview the last two games in this section, with Messi et al taking on the Prince of Egypt and the Cartel neckties from the hills of Colombia facing the cow bell ringers from the Swiss Alps.