World Cup Day Whatever

Not been following the World Cup quite so zealously over the last few days.  I caught some of Croatia vs Argentina – two of the dirtiest sides in the tournament.  Not really that surprised with the result, not the major upset that everyone thinks it is – Argentina struggled to qualify, and Croatia are a good dark horse.  But Argentina could still qualify for the next round, and it’s those good teams that scrape through to the knock-out stages who will get better during the tournament and are the ones to watch.  No one team has really stood out yet – but we really need to cut the chaff and get to the business end of the tournament and the knock-out stages.  There have just been too many matches which I’m just totally indifferent to and/or which have been remarkably unmemorable.  I guess it’s good that there haven’t been any goalless draws so far.  Too many goals from dodgy VAR penalties, own goals or set plays though.  And when the World Cup gets expanded to 48 games, it’s going to become even more bloated and insipid.  The US TV coverage continues to be absolutely abysmal – and without US involvement in the tournament, most of the fair weather fans here have little to no interest in the tournament.  I shall not be getting up at 5 am to watch the England game on Sunday, and indeed I might not watch the game until the evening.  Hopefully I can avoid the score before then – but my attempts to do that so far with other games have failed miserably.