British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

indiana · Tennis legend

FIFA World Cup 2026 - Canada/Mexico/USA

JonH · Tennis legend

England put us through the wringer again and phew.

Crazy day yesterday - my wife bought tickets for David Gray at Cardiff Castle for Xmas. So we set of at noon down to Cardiff, enjoyed a brilliant concert from him - worth every penny just to here Babylon live , a song I defy anyone not to love - and then got back to hotel in time for England extra time.

Drive home today, then down to Stansted tomorrow - another 5 hours from Yorkshire- to take wife and daughter to airport and a return home for me, so 5 hours driving yesterday, 5 today and probably 10 tomorrow.

So not much time for anything else other than to say , yes, England didnt play well but Bellingham has been immense all World Cup and if we need a man to create moments, he is turning out to be the man.

JonH · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
I see Lamine Yamal picked up his 2nd FIFA "Superior Player of the Match" vs Belgium, his 2nd of the competition. Watch out for when he starts actually playing consistently near his capabilities. Though tbf he was better in patches yesterday when his ability did shine through.

Ronaldo also won 2 while wandering about for Portugal !

In England's 5 matches so far, Bellingham has won 3 and Kane 2. At least their 'names' have been performing.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 11th of July 2026 10:15:41 AM

Presumably Jude makes it 4 now?

JonH · Tennis legend

Correct call to disallow the Norway second goal - ridiculous that you could shove someone over in the box and it not get called, even if ball is out of play. Youd have a free for all mayhem if that was allowed.

Judes first goal - got to assume the technology was correct, I didnt see a snick myself

Densher · Intermediate Club Player

Argentina has been riding their luck at this tournament. Egypt probably should have finished them off and the Swiss looked more likely to score a second until the sending off flipped the momentum. I think they may struggle with the pace of the English wingers, but I've been wrong about these things before. Whoever makes the final though is probably losing to either France or Spain.

indiana · Tennis legend

Norway and Switzerland were both very unlucky, with England and Argentina kind of escaping into the SF.

If anyone doesn't think England were lucky, ask Tomas Tuchel who repeatedly said they were. Don't though question their mentality as the ITV interviewer found out from a feisty Tuchel. I am growing to like Tuchel more and more, in that when he talks you recognise the game you have just watched unlike plenty other managers. Though his substitutions and related to that players then playing out of position seemed a bit strange this time after spot in substitutions in previous matches. Got there though.

Saying Switzerland were unlucky was more about the control they had and just about the non existence of Argentinian shots from the Argentina early goal to the red card ( 2nd yellow ) a few minutes after the Swiss equaliser. They were also unlucky to have Mr Total Idiot Embolo in their team who decided to dive near the halway line whilst on a yellow and with his team having all the momentum.

As far as I can see an interesting quirk in the VAR rules though nothing dodgy. No doubt he deserved to go but he wasn't given a yellow card on the pitch, the Argentinian player was wrongly carded. Now I believe VAR still can't intervene to simply give or reverse a yellow card ( unless it thinks it should be a red ) but it can intervene if it considers any card has been given to the wrong player and recommend it is reassigned. So if the Argentinian player hadn't been yellow carded Embolo would have got away with it?

To my mind England can go to a higher level thsn Argentina. If they can produce near the level Tuchel is looking for they have a great chance of reaching the final. Rice fit and firing would help - a bug heading in and then that heat and humidity was clearly too much for him and he was subbed at halftime ( not had a great World Cup but still an asset if fit and well ). At least the SF is indoors in air conditioned Atlanta.

France vs Spain and England vs Argentina - been some great mstches, great underdog performances ( hail Cape Verde for starters ) but that's a proper last 4 line-up for a World Cup. Hope to see great SF matches and final.

indiana · Tennis legend

Top scorers :

1. Mbappe ( France ) 8
1. Messi ( Argentina ) 8
3. Haaland ( Norway ) 7 - OUT
4. Bellingham ( England ) 6
4. Kane ( England ) 6
6. Dembele ( France ) 5
7. Oyarzabal ( Spain ) 4 - plus 3 other player that are out.

An expanded World yes, but only 5 players in history have scored more than 8 goals at a single edition ( and none since Gerd Muller's 10 in 1970 ). Bit far to go to match Just Fontaine's 13 goals for France at the 1958 World Cup.

Messi with 21 and Mbappe with 20 are now the top 2 goalscorers taking all finals tournaments into account. Kane is equal 5th on 14.

JonH · Tennis legend

Thoroughly enjoyed Spain controlling France last night, Olmo was immense and amazing how many pundits wrote Spain off.

Nice appetiser, now for the main course tonight. Nervous but looking forward to it!

Come on, England!

JonH · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
Top scorers :

1. Mbappe ( France ) 8
1. Messi ( Argentina ) 8
3. Haaland ( Norway ) 7 - OUT
4. Bellingham ( England ) 6
4. Kane ( England ) 6
6. Dembele ( France ) 5
7. Oyarzabal ( Spain ) 4 - plus 3 other player that are out.

An expanded World yes, but only 5 players in history have scored more than 8 goals at a single edition ( and none since Gerd Muller's 10 in 1970 ). Bit far to go to match Just Fontaine's 13 goals for France at the 1958 World Cup.
Messi with 21 and Mbappe with 20 are now the top 2 goalscorers taking all finals tournaments into account. Kane is equal 5th on 14.

Oyarzabal moves up to 5 wins but he wont score 3 or more in the final. I think this list is down to the top 4 on it and lets see if any of England or Argentina players listed can score tonight.

I think it will be a tight affair and quite possibly extra time. Going to be nervy!

christ · Challenger qualifying

I predict that whichever way the result goes tonight, it will be because of the biased ref and the invidious VAR, both of which were heavily in favour of the winner, and massively and unfairly against the loser. Of course [x] should have had a penalty, and [y] definitely should have been sent off if they were unbiased.

... if the USA had been involved, there would definitely have been a recount.

indiana · Tennis legend

JonH wrote:
Thoroughly enjoyed Spain controlling France last night, Olmo was immense and amazing how many pundits wrote Spain off.

Nice appetiser, now for the main course tonight. Nervous but looking forward to it!

Come on, England!

Even before last night I think I would have given England ( if they get there ) more chance against France.

Then Spain produce that ( much easier than I imagined it would be and I had money on them given their odds against ). And FWIW Spain and indeed Spanish club sides essentially don't lose finals.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 15th of July 2026 03:01:47 PM

JonH · Tennis legend

What a disappointment. A spectacular set of disastrous calls from Tuchel, IMO. We should have continued to push on the wings and run at the Argentinian defenders and build on our lead. Instead, we took off our wingers, Gordon etc, and went into a defensive shell, couldn't work out the 5 man defense at all and gave Argentina and Messi time and space to have the ball and fire in at what ended up as a chaotic rear guard failure.

Tuchel surely knew better than that. I like Southgate a lot but it is pretty much what everyone criticised him for in our losses to Croatia, France, Italy, Spain at past tournies. Putting Rashford and Toney on with 2 mins to go in injury time, what was that about.

So disappointing and so avoidable.

No interest in the silly third place match now - if anything, given it is in 2 days time, we should play all the players who havent had much game time and let them all have a run out. No point putting the Kanes, Bellinghams, etc out for that.

Spain v Argentina I will watch - it is the World Cup final. Spain won't make the mistake we made, they will control the ball and not let Argentina service Messi. Spain to win that one.

Var · Challenger level

JonH wrote:
What a disappointment. A spectacular set of disastrous calls from Tuchel, IMO. We should have continued to push on the wings and run at the Argentinian defenders and build on our lead. Instead, we took off our wingers, Gordon etc, and went into a defensive shell, couldn't work out the 5 man defense at all and gave Argentina and Messi time and space to have the ball and fire in at what ended up as a chaotic rear guard failure.

Tuchel surely knew better than that. I like Southgate a lot but it is pretty much what everyone criticised him for in our losses to Croatia, France, Italy, Spain at past tournies. Putting Rashford and Toney on with 2 mins to go in injury time, what was that about.

So disappointing and so avoidable.

No interest in the silly third place match now - if anything, given it is in 2 days time, we should play all the players who havent had much game time and let them all have a run out. No point putting the Kanes, Bellinghams, etc out for that.

Spain v Argentina I will watch - it is the World Cup final. Spain won't make the mistake we made, they will control the ball and not let Argentina service Messi. Spain to win that one.

Its disappointing but I did think Argentina played very well in the latter stages of the match and even if they had substituted with a less defensive group of players I still think Argentina would have won in the end. If you want cheering up see if you can get the clip of Peter Reid on BBC Breakfast this morning and his white wine, talking to his ex England team mates during the match. Had us in stitches!

Densher · Intermediate Club Player

Like JonH I was stunned by Tuchel's decision making after the England goal. When Gordon was taken off I fully expected him to be replaced by Rashford, and given how tired Kane was Toney, (or better yet, Watkins) should have come on earlier to press. As a result they could do nothing to reduce pressure. The first Argentina goal was also a bad one to concede given they'd done that corner kick routine at least a couple of times earlier.

Messi did have a great game, but he was afforded plenty of space to do his stuff by a defensive effort that didn't look in any way organised. It wasn't just that England made the error of parking the bus, they looked like they didn't even know how to do so. Tuchel has a contract through to Euro 2028 but I wonder if he still commands the loyalty of all the big personalities in the dressing room.

Danny1312 · Club Coach

I think it was wholly on Tuchel! Cowardly... could say lots but I shan't but to go out that way was gut wrenching! To remove our only outlet with 30 minutes left for a CB seemed bad but then to compound it with 2 more defenders for more attacking players invited pressure and gave space to technical players to play at there own pace! Worst managerial performance I've ever seen! End of rant.