I like Italy here, even without Buffon. I don’t think England is the first-rate team the English are so firmly convinced that it is. I don’t think Italy has it to win the Cup, but they should win the group.
We had our year-end 9×9 tournament today. What a disaster. I repeatedly felt like Lens watching Robben taking on two defenders and the goalie instead of simply passing the ball to the guy standing in front of the empty net. The important difference being that my teammates aren’t Robben and we scored only one goal in four games.
I put it down to too much World Cup watching. Everyone suddenly thinks they’re considerably better than they are. In any event, this would be your open World Cup post.