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Post by Mart!n on Jul 7, 2018 17:37:37 GMT 1
I wonder if Robbie was in that Newscastle crowd throwing his beer
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Post by o on Jul 7, 2018 17:46:28 GMT 1
Just brilliant, and if Sterling could finish, we'd have been a lot more comfortable a lot earlier, but his pace does scare defenders.
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Post by suedehead on Jul 7, 2018 17:46:58 GMT 1
I enjoyed the Sweden v England game more than I've enjoyed the other England matches so far. That was a good team performance. And we got two reminders of what a wonderful man Bobby Robson was. Maybe certain papers should be reminded of the part they played in hounding him out of the England job.
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Post by raliverpool on Jul 7, 2018 17:48:34 GMT 1
I never expected England to get this far, great win for us, I fancy Croatia to win tonight, could be playing Belgium again in the final if France lose on Tuesday, that's if we get that far. However, fate (& FIFA/Russian "homer" officialdom) maybe conspiring against them.
Going onto Shireblogger territory:
Sweden's most famous couple Agnetha Falkstog and Bjorn Ulvaeus married on July 6, 1971 in the village of Verum, with Benny Andersson playing the organ at their wedding.
They were one half of the 1970s/early 1980s Swedish pop combo Abba.
The 4 World Cup Quarter Finals played on July 6th & 7th 2018 were/are:
France: 6 letters Uruguay: 7 letters
Brazil: 6 letters Belgium: 7 letters
Sweden: 6 letters England: 7 letters
Russia: 6 letters Croatia: 7 letters
A = 6 letters B = 7 letters
So far the QF winners have been France, Belgium, & England.
Which equals A B B ......
so to complete the sequence (A) Russia will defeat Croatia tonight.
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Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Jul 7, 2018 17:50:18 GMT 1
I wonder if Robbie was in that Newscastle crowd throwing his beer Nope, though it did look a joyous place to be! When England scored the second goal I was sat at home drinking - believe it or not - a cup of tea!
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Post by Mart!n on Jul 7, 2018 18:05:41 GMT 1
I wonder if Robbie was in that Newscastle crowd throwing his beer Nope, though it did look a joyous place to be! When England scored the second goal I was sat at home drinking - believe it or not - a cup of tea! Funny thing I had a mental picture in my head of you been there and throwing beer above your head.
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Post by suedehead on Jul 7, 2018 19:24:31 GMT 1
If England beat Russia then it might be a good idea to avoid the Salisbury area for a little while.
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Post by Mart!n on Jul 7, 2018 22:03:18 GMT 1
Not the best of game to watch, but it did improve in the second half. Best result for England though to play Croatia in the semi. I really could see us in the final probably against Belgium, they seem to just edge France out.
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Post by Panda on Jul 8, 2018 0:03:50 GMT 1
Quarter-finals: | | | | 0-1 | Maguire 30 | | 0-2 | Alli 58 |
| (3-4p) | | Cheryshev 31 | 1-0 | | | 1-1 | Kramaric 39 | | 1-2 | Vida 100 | Fernandes 115 | 2-2 | |
An historic day for England as they reach their first World Cup semi-final since 1990. Jordan Pickford was forced into three good saves but those chances aside, Sweden rarely posed an attacking threat and England looked the likely winners from early on in the game. England have now scored 11 goals in the tournament, equalling their highest ever total set in 1966. England's 5 scorers at this World Cup equals the number they had in 2002. The other quarter-final saw Russia bow out after another brave effort that saw them equalise five minutes from the end of extra time to take the game to penalties. Croatia are the first side in history to reach the semi-finals on the back of two penalty shoot-out victories. Costa Rica came close to achieving the feat four years ago, as did Spain in 2002. Argentina won on penalties in the quarters and semis in 1990
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Post by Panda on Jul 8, 2018 0:05:02 GMT 1
The final 4... Haven World Cup Wall:Europe: 4 South America: 0 CONCACAF: 0 Africa: 0 Asia: 0 Oceania: 0
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Post by Panda on Jul 8, 2018 0:21:03 GMT 1
BBC will show France v Belgium, ITV have England v Croatia.
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Post by Earl Purple on Jul 8, 2018 1:01:59 GMT 1
This is the first time we haven't had either Brazil or Germany in a semi-final since the very first in 1930.
Since 1950, at least one of those teams has been in the final every year except 1978, 2006 amd 2010. 1978 didn't have semi-finals but second-phase groups. Brazil came 2nd in their group and played in the 3rd-place playoff in which they beat Italy.
Belgium were last in a semi-final in 1986, England in 1990 and Croatia in 1998. France are the most recent in a semi-final having played in 2006 when they also reached the final but lost.
England and France have both won it, of course. Belgium and Croatia have never reached a final. Of course Croatia only started playing as a nation in the 1990s.
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Post by Earl Purple on Jul 8, 2018 1:03:59 GMT 1
England had some competitive matches against Croatia in the 2000s, notably:
2004 European Championship, where England won 4-2 to get through the group at the expense of Croatia.
2008 European Championship qualifier, where Croatia beat England twice to qualify and England failed to do so. A draw in the final game would have seen both teams qualify but England lost.
2010 World Cup qualifier, where England thrashed Croatia twice and qualified as group winners while Croatia couldn't even come 2nd to finish in the playoffs.
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Tom
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Posts: 15,419
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Post by Tom on Jul 8, 2018 10:55:34 GMT 1
Missed the 1st 10 mins due to bad traffic (though I caught up with what I missed at half time on the BBC Sport app - had phone alerts and luckily hadn't missed anything). As Robbie said, that was the most enjoyable England game so far.
With various talk about 1990 in recent months (a certain thread on here 47 Best Worst Football songs TV show which featured World In Motion and Nessun Dorma in the top 10, and the Return To Turin documentary with Terry Butcher that I've not got round to seeing yet + realising that 1990 had the exact same dates of the year that 2018 has) I was dreaming of us reaching the semis before the tournament started. Then on Friday I read something which mentioned about how 1990 was a good summer for weather like this one, thought it was getting a bit ridiculous after that! I never said anything before because once the tournament started I wanted to take each match at a time, plus my expectations weren't getting that far anyway. It reminds me of dreaming about Reading reaching the playoff final (and feeling 50/50 about the outcome) well before Christmas a couple of years ago. Nice feeling that we've now done it - as its always nagged at me that the last time we reached the World Cup semi finals was in my lifetime and yet I have no recollection of it at all.
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Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Jul 8, 2018 17:41:40 GMT 1
TV audience figures for Sweden v England, taken from the Ratings thread at DigitalSpy
15:00 - Sweden vs England: 17.39m (84.4%) * peak: 19.64m (87.7%) at 16:45 * 1st half (15:00-15:50): 16.02m (82.0%) * 2nd half (16:00-16:55): 18.64m (86.6%)
Breakdown
15:00 - 13.32m (74.1%) 15:05 - 14.53m (77.3%) 15:10 - 15.43m (81.1%) 15:15 - 15.88m (82.3%) 15:20 - 16.23m (82.8%) 15:25 - 16.61m (83.7%) 15:30 - 16.83m (84.5%) 15:35 - 17.05m (85.0%) 15:40 - 17.36m (85.3%) 15:45 - 16.96m (84.2%) 15:50 - 16.35m (82.4%) 15:55 - 16.29m (82.0%) 16:00 - 17.14m (84.3%) 16:05 - 17.74m (85.9%) 16:10 - 18.16m (86.8%) 16:15 - 18.36m (86.8%) 16:20 - 18.48m (86.6%) 16:25 - 18.79m (86.9%) 16:30 - 18.99m (86.6%) 16:35 - 19.12m (86.9%) 16:40 - 19.37m (87.2%) 16:45 - 19.64m (87.7%) 16:50 - 19.20m (86.8%)
In addition according to the BBC there were 3.8m viewers on iPlayer, the largest ever figure.
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Post by suedehead on Jul 8, 2018 20:45:09 GMT 1
Something else worth mentioning. At the start of the World Cup Peru were the Unofficial World Champions, a title they had held since beating Bolivia in August 2017. They lost the title when Denmark defeated them in the group stage. Denmark subsequently lost to Croatia. Therefore, Wednesday's match is an Unofficial World Cup tie. Of course, it also means that the real and unofficial World Champions will be the same this time next week.
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Post by o on Jul 9, 2018 10:11:08 GMT 1
Why were they the unofficial world champions?
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Post by Earl Purple on Jul 9, 2018 10:44:57 GMT 1
It appears to be something that remains with the holders until they lose a match, after which it passes to the team that beats them.
So it is currently held by Croatia and if we beat them we will hold it.
1990 was in my lifetime and very memorable. 1966 was in my lifetime but I was too young to remember it.
Those who remember 1990 will know the England team were not all that impressive either. Only one win in normal time, all the rest drawn after 90 minutes, and that one win was only against Egypt.
Our exact run was:
Republic of Ireland, 1-1
Netherlands 0-0.
Those were our first two opponents in Euro 1988 where we lost both and were out at this stage. Netherlands went on to win the whole thing but on this match they sat back and seemed content to draw. England were the better team and had the ball in the net but it was from scoring directly from an indirect free kick so was not allowed.
Egypt 1-0
That put us top of the group, as all the other group matches finished drawn. 3 teams progressed from the group with Egypt going out.
Belgium 1-0 a.e.t. Goal by Platt in the 119th minute.
Cameroon 3-2 a.e.t. Normal time 2-2. England were trailing with about 7 minutes to go then got a penalty. One of Cameroon's goals had also been a penalty. England got another penalty in extra time to win.
West Germany 1-1 a.e.t, normal time 1-1. England's goal was an equaliser in the 81st minute. England played very well this game, the first time really we had.
Italy 3rd place playoff 1-2. I think Italy missed a penalty or it would have been 1-3. Or they weren't awarded one they should have been. Can't remember.
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Post by o on Jul 9, 2018 13:17:51 GMT 1
That goal by Platt, one of the most memorable for me, and we did enough to beat the Germans in the semi as well
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Post by suedehead on Jul 9, 2018 14:44:46 GMT 1
It appears to be something that remains with the holders until they lose a match, after which it passes to the team that beats them. So it is currently held by Croatia and if we beat them we will hold it. It started as a joke among Scotland fans when they were the first team to beat England after 1966. They claimed to be the new world champions. Since then someone has gone right back to the first England v Scotland match in the 19th century (the first ever international match) to create a full list of Unofficial World Champions.
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