Thread to discuss the football itself.
This is not a thread to discuss the hosting of the competition in Quatar.
You can discuss the hosting in the relevant thread.
His down as been unavailable due to illness. I think he will be a big loss as Upamecano has been pretty woeful this tournament...Messi will force a mistake out of him!
I think France would be stronger with Benezma to be honest. He has been unplayable at times over the last year.
Di Maria and Tagliafico starting are calls that surprise me. Would have preferred Konate over Upamecano.
I hope the game is won by the better side on the day and doesn't come down to a dodgy ref decision. I'll go for 2-1 France.
Giroud has been pretty unplayable this World Cup.
Messi for the win
Simon Jordan has been bang on about England.
Once again they lost to the 1st decent side they met. Same as the other tournaments. They have had very easy groups in the last 3 tournaments, and always beat teams they should beat. Its when they come up against a 50/50 game they always lose. They seem unable to make that step to actually beating teams their equal or better.
Not sure why the English public were so proud of this wc. For me they underachieved, again.
The pressure on Messi ahead of this game is insane. It's like everything in his life and career has been built up for this one moment. Win and he achieves Maradona levels of worship back home; lose and he forever has his countrymen reminding him he never did what Diego did. I'm struggling to think of a sportsperson that had this level of pressure on them ahead of a sporting event.
Over the years Messi was expected to drag Argentina to World CUP success, his brilliance alone was going to win that trophy, but it never happened, it's impossible for one man to make a team, but now the tables have turned, now we have Argentina dragging Messi to a World Cup final, the fans, the manager, his team mates, all doing the work, so he doesn't have to, allowing him to simply sprinkle some magic, without the need of carrying the weight, this very much makes a team, and makes winning it possible.
Neymar for some bizarre reason seems to have this burden on him.
Brazilians and others talking like he would join the pantheon with Pele and Ronaldo if Brazil won.
Ridiculously over hyped.
Is he, it's an opinion so many express, that Neymar is a self proclaimed genius, but that in reality he's just another player, nothing special.
The BBC build up is very good, much better than the misery on RTE
Agreed. Still think Benzema offers more, but the role Griezemann has been playing makes up for that.
Just look at the state of em when he was out injured in 14.
I watched a few Brazil games in pubs this year and Brazilians would that screeching everytime he got the no matter where on the pitch like he was gonna do a Maradonna 86 goal.
A lot of people also have the opinion you talk about including me. I don't think he is even the best player on that team never mind the world.
I feel the French will pull the red carpet from under Messi and use it as their own superhero cape,
More so that is what I'd like to happen - Giroud to be the one signing off his International career in style.
Vive la République!
Who is the Mark Strong lookalike ?
Messi with a hand of God goal that VAR overlooks and ignores.
I'm fairly sure I just spotted a Tipperary jersey in the crowd.
France were poor against England, won it against the run of play, but that's what winners do, would be no surprise if it panned out like that again today.
Why was the Blackadder theme tune played?
Feels like this match is another level of importance compared to regular club football. Must be incredible to be French or Argentinian right now.
Allez les bleus!
more likely a Boca Juniors top. Same colours.
France way too loose. Argentina happy to shoot from anywhere.
Messi looking sharp.
That was lucky from France. Poor effort from DePaul, still got a corner out of it, the deflection could have gone anywhere.
Looks bad for Lloris. No club sentiment shown from Romero.
Seems he's okay to carry on.
Declan Rice had traitoritis.
That was a sly one on Lloris
Two Argentinian players pushed over in the box in that incident, that flapping GK gets the call, so protected
Fair play to Darragh Maloney knowing who the players wives are. Proper sports journalism.
The Di Maria selection looks a promising one so far.
