yup..



played them for $600. great free-kick. szcznesny saved poland and denied mexico a 2nd place finish.

Nice.. I'd go Spain today

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you got it. $300 spain at -250.

germany at -1000. when the panzers are over-engineered, too many parts and parts do break down - especially in subzero temps, mud and snow.

not sure how japan did it, but their reward is croatia and spain's punishment is the easier morocco.

not playing any matches tomorrow, so bankroll will be $3.6k going into the knockout matches.

I'll be on the treadmill tomorrow morning to catch the first half. I'll finish the game at home.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

So Spain lost on purpose, sí? To fuck over Germany? I don’t follow this stuff that closely but seems plausible.

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can't really explain it. i don't believe they lost on purpose, it just so happens that spain gets the 'weaker' morocco, who won their group. i thought japan's second goal wasn't a goal..from my perspective taking spain to win; it wouldn't have mattered anyways.

what is amazing is that japan's 2-1 over spain was a carbon copy of japan's 2-1 over germany. down 0-1 at the half and then score 2 second half goals against world powers, while needing some luck to keep them scoreless in those second halfs. you can't bottle that and drink that whenever you need to. i'm afraid that japan's train has pulled into it's last station and i'll keep that in my mind when japan plays croatia.

Uruguay in the process of getting fvcked out of the next round by the ref. Up 2-0 and on the way to the next round, a Uruguay player was clearly pulled down from behind and then tripped from the front in the box. Announcers say obvious penalty, ref goes to monitor and says no penalty. Didn't seem to matter at the time, but then Korea takes the lead in the other game and all of the sudden that missed penalty is massive.

Just watched the Uruguay players going after the ref post game. Guy is giving out yellows left and right in the tunnel. Hopefully someone beats his ass. German fuck.

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Didn't a grip of german war criminal nazi shitheads move to Uruguay post-WWII? they're practically brothers.

yes. watching rob stone on fox talking soccer is like watching ray rayner at cuddly-dudley's house talking super bowl 8. i did agree with the panel that said if ghana deserved that 1st half penalty, then uruguay also deserved a penalty - based on the same criteria.

no love loss between switzerland and serbia. it's not the actual swiss, it's the kosovar-albanians who emigrated to switzerland - xhaka, shaqiri, another albanian in jashari who play for switzerland, but are really playing for albanians world-wide. obviously, the serbs know this and it got a bit nasty last time. we'll see.

Karma for Uruguay and that biting, handballing, racist garbage man Suarez.

Fascinating

Bad blood between Serbs and the Swiss. Serbs get beat by the Swiss for the second consecutive time in the World Cup and knocked out in group play second consecutive cup

Serbs cost me an upgrade to my Milinković-Savić card in FIFA 23 by not making the knockouts.

wow, 2 late thrillers. the serbs got their ethnic-cleansing haircuts and looked ready for business. just unbelievable how poor their defense is. a shame, really. serbia and yugo, for that matter, were never known for their defense. which brings me to jacqui oatley, who was the match commentator. i think she is good, real good, actually. she told us that the serbs had fine attacking players (true) and fine defensive players (not true). serbia is going home and conceding 6 goals in their last 2 matches is the reason, in case jacqui is wondering why serbia is out.

as far as brazil, i saw a show by left winger martinelli that i haven't seen since the legendary left winger eder, at the 1982 world cup. the only difference is that eder was scoring, assisting, dribbling 3-4 opponents, hitting the woodwork - while martinelli was denied 3 goals by 3 very good saves. any other day, martinelli goes into the books as a winger with 3 goals in a match. not a striker, but, a winger. great header by aboubakar, left the brazilian GK in a statue pose.

as far as the knockout matches - i'm taking the usa to advance; regardless after regular time/extra-time/penalties at +190. i'm also taking argentina to win in regular time at -450.

$300 on each.

Looks like we got the Netherlands this morning, how are our chances?

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the oddsmakers like them, they are the favorite. van gaal is much more experienced and has basically seen it all. usa has no CB like van dijk and depay is a very good player.

I read this morning that the Netherlands team is dealing with the flu.

Pulisic missed a free throw there.

Welp, this sucks

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Insurmountable 2-0 lead

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hopefully, the usa can pull one back by the 70th minute..even so, that defense loses shape very quickly and not sure if we can keep a clean sheet in the 2nd half. the american CBs are showing their lack of skill on the ball. not sure what the inclusion of ferreira did for the american 11?

dest didn't track blind on the dutch second goal, but dest has played a super 45 mins at right back. better out wide on the right than the golden boy, pulisic, on the left.

Hopefully this will end it, and we can go back to the real world where the USA does not care about futbol.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Thank you Gregg.

I'm really looking forward to this TCU game in an hour and LSU-Georgia right after.

Yup. I love American sports. Got the snowmobile club Christmas party tonight. Coming down to Chicago Sunday-Wednesday with a Second City show Monday night and lots of other fun. Good times ahead. I may watch Bears Packers at Rivers.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Spin zone: if the Dutch win it all, the US can argue it was the second best team and just got a tough draw.

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Please just let this burrito sport die now

too bad. when you allow your opponent to ping the ball from one wing to another - not closing down the passer and not marking the shooter, not tracking runs, terrible. young side, they'll be better. back-breaker 3-1 goal.

on to argentina.