DoctorAtomic

I do not believe what I just saw! I was just yelling to not take the direct shot because they were too close, and it didn't work the last time. I think the US tried that once.

It's a late game fracas! Chaos!

Everyone is talking about Messi's last tour, but Modric is 37. He might be on his final run too.

I wouldn't say this was a great match. Probably extra time and PKs saved it. Brazil was kind of just waiting for Croatia to overextend, and Croatia was happy to just hang on. Even when they scored, Brazil just expected that was it. Croatia didn't counter well. The Croatian keeper has to be man of the match for the 90 alone. I'm surprised Neymar didn't take a PK. I'd put him third at the least. I believe it is 'adeus'!

I don't care for Neymar's acting, but you don't score 77 goals internationally by accident. Not only cutting sharply past the keeper, but you have a sliver of open goal at that angle and he threaded it. But that's Brazil; they rely on individual's to create, and I think the world is catching up in terms of being able to absorb that. How often does a squad come from behind in extra time? That was a great team piece of work. Not to mention the first 15 of the extra time when the Croatian guy blasted it over the net. Just focus on making contact. WOW

Practicing PKs on your own is fine to a point. I'm sure players do practice with their clubs because all the league tournaments and champions league also go to PKs in their knockout rounds. However, if you're not including it in training as part of the international squad, it strikes me as passing the buck by the coaching staff. Clearly, it's doable because England has.

I also enjoyed Frannie histrionically explaining that 'nah son' means they're NOT boys, but 'sup' means they ARE boys again. tbh, I'm surprised the Smiths put that much effort into Klaus.

Cheers is the only effective will they/won't they because it was essentially the first. So it's been copied infinitely and it never really has worked since.

I could have done without the B plot for more of the puppets. For some reason, Jeff talking regularly in his panicky voice as the hippo cracked me up the most. Hayley shouting "VikaPEDia!" was brilliant. The show was exceptional - how to read crop reports, grammar gulag, the song. All the random East Germanism - tell us if your parents listen to rock music. So I assume the 'sharing' episode wasn't downloadable because that was the one where Klaus was as an actual boy? One of the tshirts was just "Let's do anal".

Ronaldo is getting up there in years. You don't really want to center your squad around a 37 y/o. He's in great shape of course, but at some point the guard changes.

Spain had over 75% possession. If they couldn't generate chances that's on them. If they're not good in PKs, then it's on the staff to get them to push in extra time. Both teams had 120' and 6 substitutions. You can't walk on the pitch at any level expecting to win.

Did the Swiss know that they had a big match today?

Tough goal. That was poor defending.

I was never a fan of just guessing on the penalties (as the keeper). It looked like the Morocco keeper was favoring a side, but wasn't flat out just guessing either. He was beat on the first one, but it still hit the post.

Ian Darke actually said 'death by 1000 passes'. WOW.

I don't care for the commercial with Beckham and Manning and the like arguing what it's called because they're not being technically correct, and it's like you're being pedantically pedantic but false. I wish the US was as boring as Spain though. I don't mind when a side plays a lot of possession because internationally, you're not going to get a ton of up and down matches. However, Spain is in the front third, but there's no movement into the box or any overlap runs.

"What do you expect in the second half, Landon?" "Much of the same." That was it. Not, I expect Spain will have most of the possession, but Morocco is going to get a few good chances. You're supposed to actually talk.

Soccer was termed by the English to shorten 'Association Football' and give it a different name from rugby because both were called football.

Scathing. I've watched the Spanish language cast on Peacock a lot, and I just turn down the halftime shows for the most part.

For any out of bounds the whole ball has to be over the line whether in the air or on the ground. Any field boundary, so that counts for goals and corners. This happened in Japan's last Group game that led to the goal. The player can actually be out but if the ball isn't, it's still live. Offsides is being called far tighter.

Well, that's that for the second match of the day.

And nowadays, you can set a 15-20 second delay on send, where you can undo and call the email back.

I got a phone call when the shootout was going on. I was nuts watching all the saves. I was rooting for Japan, but I don't have any skin in this one. It was a competitive match for a change.

No, that's what I meant. That's how it's currently called. It used to not be called that way was what I was saying. The rule is 'even' is onside; it's how 'even' is called. Here, it's if it's only an elbow, they call it. That's what I meant by hair trigger. It used to be the full body. I mean, they can't change it midstream. I think it suppresses scoring and chops the flow of the game.

It's the current interpretation of the rule. When I was an official, it wasn't like that. It can swing back. Technically, iirc, 'even' is onsides. It's the interpretation of what 'even' means. You could say half the body or less is onside. Nowadays when offsides is flagged, they play on to see what happens before calling it back or letting it play. That's not technically the rule either. I used to wave the flag off if the ball played too long to the keeper or just went into some dead space where a defender retrieved it. You have time to make the decision. It's the same in calling advantage on a foul. Sometimes you call it, but the player stumbles and loses possession so you whistle the foul. The Dutch were better than the US, but if you have mental lapses on defense, world class players are going to make you pay. Those were fundamental soccer 101 blunders. I don't think they played scared. The US doesn't play great from behind, and that's really what happened. I tend to think the 4-3-3 doesn't work well because there's no real forwards, and I think getting a real 9 and a solid 6 in some type of 442, 4231 would be better. They possess the ball better than they used to. You're not going to beat any traditional powers, without building out.