A lot of chicken counting here but bear with me

The winners of our group play the second placed team in group H in the second round. The runners up in our group play the winners of group H in the second round.

Grouo H is much of a muchness, nothing really to fear, no preference for playing one team over another. So we go out to beat Belgium, keep the winning run going, keep up confidence and moral. Except...

If we win our second round game we'll play a team from either group E or group F.

Finish runners up in our group, win the second round match and our quarter final tie will be against either the runners up in group E or the winners of group F.

Finish top of our group, get through the second round and we'll face the winner of the match between the team that finished top of group E and second in group F. There's every likelihood this will be Brazil v Germany.

Group E and F finish the day before we play Belgium. We'll already know who we could face in the quarter finals before our final group game. A match between two teams who have already qualified.

Win that game and your opponents in the quarters are Brazil or Germany. Lose it and it looks, on paper, the easiest run to a world cup semi final you could ever hope for.

Who on earth would try to win a game like that.

 

If that happens, us and Belgium will have no incentive to score. We both have identical goal difference and goals scored so assuming we draw it will come down to disciplinary record. It might end up with Southgate sending Welbeck on in the 90th minute with orders to call the referee a lovely person until he gets sent off...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados_4–2_Grenada_(1994_Caribbean_Cup_qualification)

 

Well I'd rather avoid Colombia tbh.

 

They're currently 3rd in the group so that might be very easily done

 

Nah. Win every game we play. Job done. There's nothing to fear there.

#ItsComingInYourEars

 

We've played Germany 5 times at world cup finals winning one, drawing one and losing 3
Played em twice at the euros and lost them both.
We've played Brazil 4 times at world cup finals drawing one and losing three.
So in 11 games in tournament football against these clubs we've lost 8 drawn two and the one we won was on home soil.

I'm thinking it's probably best to try to avoid them if we can.

And it's all been said before, how the opposition don't look very good and we're playing great and it's going to be different this time, but we still lose and you die inside all over again.

 

We beat Germany in the group stages at Euro 2000. Still managed to fck it up and not get out the group mind! Blame Kevin Keegan for that. But we beat them 1-0.

 

We did, you're right, apologies. I dunno, we've only played them twice in that competition and I managed to get one of those results wrong.

 

If we're going to win this thing i'd rather us beat the best teams. We shouldnt really fear anyone with what we've seen so far from the favourites.

 

To win it you,be got to face the best teams anyway so what difference does it make.

 

Yeah, but if we hold and give and do it at the right time....

 

There is only one way to beat them

Get round the back.

 

They win their last match and they're through. Played 87 minutes with 10 men against Japan

 

I had to get the young uns World Cup wallchart out last night and l was thinking the same. Imagine running to your own goal and blasting the ball in to finish 2nd in the group.

 

By the time we play Belgium we won't know who our last 16 game will be against but we will know who our likely qf opponents will be.
Given that neither us or Belgium will want to lose a game and yellow cards are wiped out after the group stages we might see 22 blokes running around trying to get themselves booked so their team comes second on disciplinary criterion.
We might also see no diving or rolling around the floor in pretend agony after being flicked by a little finger as they won't want to get one of the opposing team booked.
Send for Colin!

 

Key words there are ‘on paper’.
I haven’t seen one team yet - and that includes England - that stands out and looks like they have a good chance of winning it.
The usual suspects such as Argentina, Brazil and Germany look relatively weak.
Mexico and Columbia have produced the better performances.

 

If we try not to win, then go out anyway to Japan or whoever it is, people will be furious and the team rightly mocked.

Go out to beat everyone, if people actually think we can win this thing we would have to play either Germany or Brazil or whoever in the final so whether we play them in quarters or whatever sod it. Just try to win every match, get confidence in the players that they can beat anyone. Another Hat trick for Harry Kane.

To be honest they’ve already done better than I expected. If they go out trying to win so be it.

 

Somebody else once said very similar to that.. " To be the man, you've got to beat the man, woooooo!".

 

If a team goes into the knockout stages thinking 'I don't want to play them in the next round' then get on the plane and fvck off home