gingerjon

Couple of things: Argentina cut out the stupidity and focused on winning having fallen behind whilst England overthought things and ended up stifling themselves. And the ref had a good game.

Kane will be doing what he has been told to do. He is very much a following orders footballer.

England are not set up to retain possession now so unless we win on penalties I don't see how we win at all.

I'm not sure it was even that exciting

To take the famous example of Curacao. They may have been overwhelmingly from the Netherlands but there’s an active and obvious football presence there, the federation is made up of people from there, the heritage lads play between major tournaments, and the vast majority of their home games are in Curacao. It is not the same as even Ireland RL.

Not that I'm aware of. This really is no way to grow a sport.

I got it but only because I had three letters locked in and just joked about what might fit around them because I literally couldn't see an unblock word. In much the same way as discovering that Zzyzx is a real place.

Bingo. But it was good for some Aussies and their agents looking to spook clubs. Literally no one else believed in it who wasn't on the payroll.

Well, iet's hope we have higher aspirations than a failed lame duck competition that never existed.

In many ways, social media is terrible. But this is the first time, thanks to some erudite people on social media, that I was really aware of how, for England, this is essentially a football rivalry but, for Argentina, it is political battle. And also, anyone who wonders why a FIFA led by an Italian who likes dictators might feel an affinity with Argentina, should probably also dip into some of that social media explaining.

It's part of the reason why I keep wanging on (and apologies for doing so) about exactly *what* the deal/partnership/takeover would be. Martyn mentioned the value of British rugby league, for example. If it's SL then, in some ways, it's a lovely, tasty morsel and wouldn't necessarily be costly at all for the NRL. If it's the rest, then ...

I've said before that we need to compartmentalise 'the game' more because ... - Super League is not doing badly at all. Attendances remain strong, by and large it's competitive, and there seems to be a decent cohort of clubs living within their current means or at least manageable levels of director subsidy; - But the second tier is a disaster - The community game is getting to be more known for on and off field violence than sound player development - The women's game is invisible and, in some ways that's handy because it's going backwards relative to other women's sports - The areas the game is played in are contracting - International development in Europe is on a level with korfball and England, who should lead a change, do not have the resources or capability to do so - We seem to have lost the minds who were able to unlock regular new waves of Sport England/other funding

Quite possibly. I haven't delved too deeply into what the expected pathways were for 1-4 ranked sides in previous tournaments.

No more so than usual - teams seeded into four pots and then one team from each pot per group (with a few caveats but essentially that).

I’d rather be playing France in the final. And it’s not even a close call.