Well, the football has started, and some of it has been good, right? A Mackem scored a worldie on Friday night in what was probably the best game of the competition so far — not that many of us bothered to stay up until 4:00 to watch it.
Thus far, controversy off the pitch has taken the limelight.
A Somalian referee was disgracefully denied entry to a country purely because he denied links to a terrorist organisation and shares a name with a man, whilst an alleged rapist has been allowed entry to one
country — only for him naturally to be denied entry to another, somehow causing more controversy?
The way certain teams from certain countries have been profiled and searched upon entry, while others of a certain other profile from a certain other continent have been welcomed with mariachi bands, marches and parties says a lot about the socio-political climate engulfing the world around this tournament, but hey, Gianni Infantino has told us to “chill and relax”.
Despite the ghoulish build-up caused by extortionate ticket prices leading to some stadiums reportedly only having sold 10% of tickets for certain games, $17 “foreign premium beers”, a 100% increase on parking and public transport costs and temperatures regularly above 30°C for players, I still can’t help but get excited.
Japan have been forced to move their training base three times due to poor facilities.
Argentina nicked England’s before the competition started; someone nicked a load of England team kit and boots from a car in Kansas City (to be returned later) and Switzerland’s training base has a quarantine zone around it that no human can enter due to the presence of a cacophony of different species of venomous snakes.
The daily football is great, some absolute cinema, yet on the other hand, just as much is like watching Calumn McFadzean struggle to run with one foot in front of the other at Crewe away in League One. Either way, it’s iconic.
Shihtole dropping a stinker on the opening day for South Africa wasn’t even the highlight of the opening game.
That belonged to the Brazilian referee who, when explaining VAR decisions to the crowd in the stadium and the entire world watching over the TV broadcast, spoke in such poor English that not a single person could understand any of it. The look on Khuliso Mudau’s face, standing right next to him, was a wonderful sight.
Yet somehow, I think more people understood this than the decisions being made in general, and both of the red cards in the latter stages seemed desperately harsh. VAR has new powers too, which feels about as absurd as asking Colombian cartel members to provide security for Andrés Escobar in 1994.
Most of us can probably agree that this would be a far better tournament hosted in Mexico alone.
The Azteca on opening day looked like a true footballing cathedral; more World Cup games have taken place there than at any other stadium and it still annoys me that they’ve hosted it now three times since we did sixty years ago — but the stadium itself is dripping with history.
Nobody watched Korea v Czechia overnight, right?
Well, if you don’t plan on staying up late and want to wake up to watch the highlights without being spoiled for the result, this website, which hides all scores and links you directly to the official highlights from either BBC or ITV, is a great resource.
I certainly didn’t watch the game live, but what I did watch was Korean fans discovering tequila, mezcal and cantaritos in Jalisco.
They celebrated with Mexicans all night long, and when prompted by security at checkpoints outside the stadium, instead of handing their tequila in, they downed it all on the spot.
This is the best part of every World Cup.
I’ve experienced it myself in 2018: the mixing of entirely different cultures and just celebrating football together. The people who run tournaments may be corrupt and the expansion may be portrayed as a great thing for smaller nations, but in reality it just widens wallets and back pockets — but this, they can’t take away.
The bext big game for us of a red and white persuasion was to be USA vs Paraguay in Los Angeles, in which Omar Alderete made his World Cup debut.
We saw a few customary last-ditch challenges and clearances from the big man but in truth, la albirojja were outclassed by the American front six. The Paraguyan midfield was picked apart like Donald Trump in front of a suckling pig at an all-you-can-eat buffet, as they looked too fired up for the game and unable to deal with wide overloads and unwilling to track runners from deep.
As mentioned above, Gio Reyna — the Sunderland-born son of Claudio — wrapped the game up near the end with a sumptious outside-of-the-boot goal.
I was in Russia during what felt at the time like a generational England run.
Security checkpoints were numerous and at every other corner was a military bloke with a gun. The hooligans were all locked up behind a giant metal door in Siberia after the government agreed to let them have their fun two years prior, but it was still just mint rocking up in a hotel reception with your mates, finding a random group of strangers in England shirts down there and then spending the day with them, some Swedes, an Aussie and a group of Germans partying together in Moscow (shoutout to those two West Brom fans).
That is, unless you’re Iranian, who’ve all been denied entry to watch their team while the players themselves are only permitted to fly in for the day before returning to their base in Mexico for each game.
Here’s hoping for far more of Alexei Lalas calling James Corden a “f*cking w*nker” live on air, and every time you see a Mag, remind them Lewis Hall isn’t in the squad and laugh at them as they internally combust.
I’m actually quite upbeat about England and I like Tuchel’s squad.
Yes, there are arguments over who’s third or fourth choice in certain positions, but how much game time are these players we’re all losing our minds over actually going to see? He’s not just selected a team and squad of the best players possible, but a team that’s designed entirely around getting the best out of our captain and star player.
We’ve been over there for longer than any other tourist side arriving in the country, acclimatising to the heat, and Tuchel’s system is designed to be heat-resistant.
