blake

I doubt if there was any aggro in Russian cities after their exit at all. They went out, but they weren't disgraced, they exceeded expectations, and also they lost to a fellow Slav team and not to their way of thinking a bunch of monkeys. It's only when they get humiliated, especially by a racial 'inferior' like when they lost 1-0 to Japan in a 2002 World Cup group game that things are likely to get bad. There was a big riot in central Moscow after that defeat, hapless Japanese students were targeted and it was really nasty.

yes, you ARE blaming the coach just like every other ten cent observer who doesn't know anything at all about the situation. The guy was in his first year at the job, and he also comes from a different part of Thailand. You expect that this guy should have bucked all the local practice and tradition and overide it, when he's not even from the local region and doesn't even know the area that well? As if he is some geologist? The coach had apparently been a Buddhist monk for 12 years prior to his appointment, but that doesn't mean he's got these miraculous abilities and privy to the fact that there is going to be an unusual amount of water seeping into a cave of a part of the country that he isn't even all that familiar with. in Thailand people go down and sit in caves all the time. Not necessarily as deep caves as that one, but it's part of the culture that people do. Going into caves is not something that only potholers, and outdoor-types do, like in the west. They are not necessarily like these outdoor-type tourist attractions like the Blue John Cavern or something. Some of these caves have these big Buddhist shrines in them and people can go down there and spend weeks in them sometimes, if they're keen and have something to think about. Of course people know that caves can flood, but nobody around there thought that that cave would at that time. Just why, exactly, do you expect that the coach should have known that it was going to flood any more than anyone else did?

An ambulance vehicle in London was badly damaged after several people were pictured standing on top of it while a medic responded to a call nearby. The Metropolitan Police said there had been no arrests over the incident. they also said that they have no plans to arrest anybody for the offence, as it has been so long since England had ever done anything in an international tournament that the incident was 'fully understandable'. the Metropolitan police spokesperson continued : 'mine's a pint of lager and a tequila slammer chaser'.

every two bit observer who knows nothing, at all, about Thailand and the Thais have been in a rush to blame the coach for this as if the guy just made it up on the spur of the moment for the hell of it. That particular Chiang Rai soccer team have been going down the very same cave at the very same time of year for years as a kind of a tradition. The elder siblings of the lads did the very same thing as these did without incident, so obviously the parents aren't going to be dumb or hypocritical enough to blame the coach even if there is plenty of idiot foreigners that will - all without a moment's hesitation or research of course.

whatever happens from now on here England have achieved a lot even if they lose 7-0 in their next match. That won't happen. But even if it does, they've got to the last four of the World Cup and cemented their record for being one of the very best ever performing teams in it. Brazil and Germany, Italy, Argentina, the Netherlands and Spain would love to be there in the World Cup last 4. Well hard lines you lot - you weren't good enough and England were.

it was the coach's first season. But his predessessors all did it, it was a custom around there to take the kids into the cave. There would have been a rumpus if he'd decided to say no, we're not doing it this year out of all the years. Perhaps you'd like to see the guys predessessors lined up against the wall and shot too.

the Swedes, were Turnips, but yes well done England.

no the problem with that idea is that the rocks are all wrong for drilling a shaft. It won't work. It is not like Chile. They have got to get the lads out pretty much the same way they came in.

this is now getting reported as a major full scale story but it took a while to get going. The very similar Chilean miners store back in 2014 got more attention. Even though the stricken here are children, when they are not white and from what for most people is a rather strange foreign culture, it just doesn't find its way to the top of the news so naturally. these suspenseful will-they-or-won't-they-make-it kind of news stories have some claim to being the best of the lot. They can be front page news for weeks. As to whether or not they will make it, I have no idea really what their chances are and neither does anybody else. I've been following it on the Thai English language sites. Apparently it wasn't a one off thing that the youth leader decided to do just like that, as if on a whim. It's an annual tradition that the team do every year.

so would I, if I were a Croat.

I have a sneaking suspicion England will Brexit, before they get to the final. I tried BREXIT on online Scrabble the other day and it worked. But that''s just Scrabble. Real life is different.

haha yeah in cricket there is an expression or cliche, 'never run off a misfield'. That's not true in baseball at all. If somebody messes up in the field in that game, you've got to go like you're in the 400 meter Olympic final.

yes there's clear water between baseball and the others, it's by far the best. An inside the park home run is in the top division of sporting spectacles. Of any sport.

football is my least favourite of the big 4 American attended sports. It's just horrible. Basketball I don't much like either but it's better than football. Ice Hockey is getting a bit better for me but still not all that great. Baseball is the best one but none of them are brilliant.

I think it is OK that 18 is the minimum drinking age. 21 is too much. it's not that, but the voting age that should be increased. It's far too low, and should go up, but not to 21. Merely to 20, is sufficient.

it is not as if rugby or American is not a code of football. Of course it is. It's not like it's handball. Quite a lot of the contacts between body and ball is with the feet not hands, and around 50% of the points must be scored with the feet. those type of 'football or soccer?' exchanges in America and Australia are just tedious. You know exactly what will happen. If you say football, they'll be this short exchange while they attempt to ascertain exactly what sport you are talking about. After about 20 times, you get bored with it, so to circumvent it, you just say soccer. You are in their country after all. You should speak their dialect of English the way they do to help you get understood better and avoid misunderstandings, not the way you do. In Europe in Spain or somewhere I'd never use the word soccer even though as a word, there's nothing wrong with it. As you imply, soccer as a word was formerly used in Britain far more than it is now.

Australia and North America are the two big places where if you say 'football' they'll initially think that you're talking about a totally different sport. In South Africa too, although to a lesser extent. To a lot of them 'football' means rugby. Ultimately there's more than half a dozen codes including Association, American, Canadian, Australian, Gaelic, rugby league and rugby union football. If you say soccer, it doesn't matter where you are, there won't be any confusion. Even Euro people, like Spanish, Italians and Germans who are the least familiar with the word soccer will still understand what you mean. If I was in an international group including like an Australian, an American, an Italian and a Nigerian I'd use the word soccer every time. It avoids that split second of confusion where they all may not realise exactly what you mean. Euro people, who are the ones responsible for the word football becoming synonymous in most places with the association football code, often think soccer is an American English word but it isn't. It's a British word, a contraction of association that got traction because in conversation people needed to easily distinguish association from rugby football.

excuse me, but when was the last time you discussed association football, or soccer, in a pub or a bar with a bunch of guys, in Australia, South Africa, or the United States? unlike in Italy, or Portugal, or Germany, or Brazil, if you used the expression 'football', they'd think you were talking about some other sport.

it might be because I've seen quite a bit of the world and heard a lot of people talking sport in many foreign countries, whereas you very probably haven't. In the English speaking world, 'soccer' is the word most often used to describe 'association' football. In the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa etc, there are other codes of football like rugby football, American and Aussie rules etc that are just as, if not more popular than soccer is. Therefore it is not a good idea to use the expression 'football' when you are talking soccer in places like that. in continental Europe 'futbal', 'fussball', etc, is the word for it and there is no other ; and in South America also. That's because they don't have any widespread alternative football traditions apart from soccer.

it's not 'slightly less' at all. If a team wins the World Cup twice, they get 13 points. Two quarter final final appearances, and you only get six. It is not an accident that in the whole list, the top 8 (#8 is now Uruguay, not the Netherlands) are the very same 8 teams, that have won the World Cup. Nobody who hasn't won it, is above anybody that has. the 3 teams that have won the World Cup more than once since 1950, Germany, Brazil, and Italy, are also the top 3 of the list. the most important thing is not winning anyway. It's qualifying and therefore getting to the final stages and have a chance of winning. The top 5 teams are also the 5 teams that have the best record in qualifying.

what are you talking about? all I'm saying is that for a neutral, somebody watching from one of the 180 odd countries in the world that are no longer in the mix for becoming World Cup winners, they aren't going to be too impressed, by England. England don't play entertaining football of the type that makes somebody in Bengal or Beijing say to their mate in the pub, did you see that? It was brilliant. Internationally, nobody wants to know about England international football. It's poor quality. It's short of class. It's rubbish. just contrast tonight's offering with last night's Belgium-Japan game. Different planet.

England are like Europe's Mexico in World Cups. They're good at qualifying. Good at getting past the group stage even. just don't ask them, to do anything else. but in a way England are worse than Mexico because at least Mexico ENTERTAIN, even when they lose. England don't entertain. If England do go out neutrals won't mourn them or regret it that they do go out. The football they play is not entertaining. Nobody will miss them.

England are struggling to dispatch a poor low level Latin American team. Uruguay would have this lot's guts. They'd beat them 2-0 or 4-0 with a smirk and not even trying.

I not only hate France. I also hate Morrissey, the Smiths, and everything they stand for. total lightweights.

what a game, best drama so far. Now 2-2. Belgium were in the pick of the games last time too against USA, what a game that was which Belgium won. Japan did not sit on their lead at all. They wanted to make it like 6-0 and paid the price.