As frustrating as it was to watch (the 78,000 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow deserve a refund), France’s scoreless draw against Denmark — our first of the tournament — wasn’t hard to predict. Les Bleus wanted top spot in Group C and Denmark loves nothing more than an amicable bit of chumminess, and so that’s how it played out.
Had it not been for the last minute heroics of Toni Kroos, Germany would have nightmares of how agonizingly close Julian Brandt came to scoring in the second minute of stoppage time against Sweden.
Brandt, who plays as a winger for Bayer Leverkusen, entered the game in the 87th minute, and it didn't take long for him to make an impact.
I’ll be honest, I don’t have that many eyes. I just have the two and they largely need to be fixed on the same thing. In fact, if I had to describe it to you, my vision basically just looks like what you’d presumably see with one giant eye. I describe my lovely eyes and their function just as a means to say that with the World Cup having moved to simultaneous kick offs, my eyes can’t be everywhere.
On Tuesday I watched France vs. Denmark (kill me now) and Argentina vs. Nigeria (let me live a while longer), so those two matches will be my focus here.
With Croatia having all but clinched first place in Group D ahead of its match against Iceland, manager Zlatko Dalic elected to make nine changes to his starting XI. For most teams there would be a notable dropoff, but this Croatia midfield has an aura of invincibility heading into the knockout stages.
The game’s an original drama unlike any other, but for 40 minutes of Argentina versus Nigeria at Saint Petersburg Stadium, this felt like a rerun. There was Javier Mascherano, bloodied, stretching every sinew as the side’s aging lynchpin and guilty of doing too much.
For the entirety of 38 games at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, you could do whatever the hell you pleased at corner kicks. Use Pepe as a battering ram to create some space for Ronaldo? Sure. Tackle Harry Kane to the ground with two players? Why not. Shove Miranda in the back to snatch a Swiss equalizer? That sounds wild, but we’ll definitely allow it.
After watching first Lucas Biglia and then Enzo Perez do little except play balls into places where things go to die, it’s looking like Argentina’s riding Ever Banega next to Javier Mascherano from here on out (which still might not be very long whatsoever). Regardless, my God was it nice to see a ball from the Argentina midfield that wasn’t first coated in the feces of a leaky Mascherano anus.
World Cup final viewers surpassed the one billion mark for Germany's 1-0 win against Argentina in 2014. That made the World Cup final the most-watched sporting event in history, and it should break its own viewership record this year.
Although the Olympics slightly outpaces the World Cup in terms of overall viewership, no single game or match can stack up against World Cup Final viewers.
England vs Belgium kicks off Thursday, June 28, at 2:00 p.m. ET on FOX and Telemundo, with the winner taking top spot in Group G. With both nations sitting on six points and with a goal difference of +6, it’s possible a draw could see FIFA fair-play points determine who wins the group. (England currently has one less yellow card than Belgium.)
This is where the introduction usually goes but fire the torpedoes!