Brazilian 1st Division when hardly any S. American footballers played overseas is hardly playing in a pub league with pub team footballers. Ok, he finished his career playing for NY Cosmos, but Pele was equally good with both feet, unlike Maradona and Messi, and he was a brilliant header of the ball. Three World Cup winner’s medals, youngest player ever in a final. The best player ever.

A classic example of a bunch of athletes lacking technique and football nouse versus a football team with players who have both in abundance.

Netherlands 2 USA 0 Argentina 2 Australia 0 France 3 Poland 1 England 1 Senegal 1

Croatia were a class apart from Canada in every department. Take Davies out of the Canadian team and all you have is a bunch of athletes with little technique or skill. Football the winner in that game.

I hope Poland thrash this bunch of diving cheats. Horrible country, female fans not allowed, about to buy Man Utd. Yuck!

England 1 Wales 0

To make Jim happy, Iran will beat the USA to qualify, Wales will beat England, and the USA will beat England. England out because Wales and USA have 4 points each, who goes through decided by goal difference.

England 2 USA 0

That was an impressive performance by any standard, but spare a thought for the Iran players who refused to sing their national anthem in protest at what is going on in their country. They might face some serious repercussions when they get home.

Group A could be decided by who scores most goals against Qatar, the worst team I have ever seen in the WC finals.

I was at the 1994 WC, staying in Los Gatos, California, where the Brazil team was based. I saw three group games in a packed Stanford Stadium, and the Round of 16 game between the USA and Brazil. This game was played on American Independence Day, the atmosphere was unbelievable and the Rover Roy Wegerle was in the US team. I had my Rovers shirt on and was yelling “Weggers” during the warm up. He gave me a wave and all the yanks around me assumed I knew him! Brazil of course won 1 0, but the party on the streets of Los Gatos when I got back was epic. Packed out with Brazilians doing their thing, a truly fantastic day.

I agree completely that Qatar is a WC of a country and should never have been awarded the World Cup, but like it or not the event is almost upon us. I think it would be appropriate for either Argentina or Portugal to win it, so that either of the truly great players of the recent modern era, Ronaldo and Messi, will be crowned a World Cup winner. There have been four such players in my lifetime, the others being Pele and Maradona, who both won it. Footballers of this calibre are on a far higher level of ability than the so called “world class” players who are wrongly described as such. For me, the four players I mention deserve the accolade, World Cup Winner. What a privilege to watch them play football.

England 2 Iran 1 Last 8:- England Senegal France Argentina Spain Belgium Uruguay Brazil

Police dogs successfully sniff out drug laden Rovers’ fans at West Ham. About time all clubs started to do this.

Dacky has chosen the celebrity lifestyle, and all the social media garbage that goes with it. Hopefully, if his partner is off Twitter etc with Ant and Dec for a while, Bradley will get some breathing space. I love him as a player, but some of the recent antics are in danger of a lot of fans losing patience with him. Toys and prams do nobody any good, apart from babies and children.

Hopefully the Qatar team will lose all their group games so that the Qatari government is embarrassed. I wonder how many of their team will be paid mercenaries from other countries?

JDT manages like a typical pragmatic Scandinavian; use the resources available to you without any sentiment, stick to your principles, work hard and keep calm. Long may it continue for Blackburn Rovers.

Read Trav’s piece in today’s Telegraph in which he blames the players for their away day blues, not the manager.

Good to see Travis saying that the players need to step up and take responsibility for their terrible way form and inconsistent performances. Very rare in this day and age to see someone in the workplace looking at things this way.

How can the manager be accountable for players who were excellent one game and rubbish in the next eg Morton, Szmodics, Brereton etc? Surely they have to take responsibility for their huge swing in performance from game to game, too easy to blame the manager when players are so inconsistent.

Give the guy a chance, the current criticism of JDT is ridiculous. I would much rather see a gradual and solid development of the club than the hiring and firing mantra adopted by so many clubs these days. Comparing him after 12 games to Dalglish, who had millions to spend to improve the team, is pathetic, and taking the Mickey out of the pronunciation of his name is childish to say the least. Yes, we are all frustrated by the inconsistent results, but please be patient and let’s see where Mr. Tomasson can take us.

Looks like another case of rubbish one half, ok the next…..hopefully!

Fair enough Matty, but I can’t lose the image of far right politics and the flag of St. George.

I was just pointing out that yobbish behaviour by England fans seems to coincide with the demise of the Union Jack as England’s flag, and it’s replacement with the cross of St. George, the preferred emblem of the far right of English politics. No sign of any such flags before the BNP, National Front, UKIP etc reread their ugly heads.

But why do fans from England feel the need to act like this? Basically it’s because of the arrogant and bigoted attitude that prevails in this country, the belief that having a good time always involves being pissed or drugged up and it’s ok to act like a twat and insult other people.