cosmicway

The most extraordinary world cup bet I won but got nothing, It's world cup 1982. England had drawn with Germany 0-0 and Germany beat Spain 2-1. England are due to play against Spain in one of the three team groups that replaced the stage of eight that year. At the same time Italy were due to play against Brazil and everyone expected Brazil to win easily. It was a department store competition for a Toyota car rather than football betting as we know it today and the question was to name the pair of finalists, the winner and score of the final. So I write down Italy against Germany, 3-1 to Italy ! I can't remember now why I did n't say Italy v. England. England were playing well, defeating Spain and going top of the group was well within the realm of possibility. I supported England so why choose Germany ? Anyway I did. Italy beat Brazil 3-2 as we know, England drew 0-0 against Spain so Germany won the group, but there were more obstacles for both of them ahead. For Italy is was Poland in the semis - they won 2-0, reach the final. For Germany it was France and after a thriller match that ended in a 3-3 draw Germany won the penalty shootout. So we are in the final and Italy wins 3-1. What could be the odds for my prediction at the time it was made then ? I make it 100 to 1 or more. Real betting did not exist of course those years - only if somebody had friends in England. So I go to the department store to get my Toyota and what do they say ? They say to me you won nothing, a mrs Lossada is the winner ! Now Julio Lossada was the Urugayan right winger playing for Olympiakos Piraeus in the seventies. Maybe he settled in Greece after he finished with football - I don't know. But how many Lossadas do we have in Greece ? Impossibile. People called Gomez or Martinez yeah, sure. But Lossada ? So that was his wife and it was a gift from Olympiakos to her.

Japan played well but Croatia were a pain in the eye.

Embapper is too hot to handle. Only with a small food poisoning.

Why we allowed Olivier Giroud to leave Chelsea ? After two years the man is still going strong. He scored again today against Poland and he also scored an almost legal goal with flying scissors -just like against Atletico. The referee had blown his whistle for a foul just a fraction of a second earlier. He may also win the world cup again. We fancied Lukaku was going to solve all of our problems !

I don't get this. Suppose Mbappe was one from our 2018 youth squad but still the same Mbappe in 2022. He d' still have the same salary demands. Nothing works without big money. PSG if not win the CL this year will have problems.

No it's not. If the PSG ship goes under again they will collapse. Mbappe, Neymar and even Messi will be available to the highest bidders.

Mbappe.

The sh*t has hit the fan. We spend big or Boehly ends up with a team struggling to avoid relegation. I recall with dread the early seventies. We had economic problems as well then but from close to being the top side of England and Europe we slowly dropped to the second division.

I used to call him the brylcream man. Then I expected him to end some somewhere in China or the emirates but he recovered. But yesterday he nearly beat Germany. Assencio was the one who lost the clear opportunity for the 2-0 and then the Spaniards did something stupid to allow the Germans to equalize.

The no 9 position has become haunted since Diego: Morata - fail (but has impoved a lot in Spain !) Werner - fail Lukaku - fail Desparate solutions Falcao, Pato, Aube fail, fail and fail. Let's pray Nkunku breaks the spell.

England are in pole position despite pain in the eye. All they have to do is draw against Wales. Given they don't lose to Wales, the only possibility of finishing second in the group is if Iran beat USA (Iran tops the group !). But unless today's performance was by design they are horrible.

Portugal are a useless slow motion team.

What do you think about the bomb at Istlikal, Istanbul ? Who planted it ? Is there some kind of "rejection front" among the Kurds who commit acts of terrorism, just like the radical Pals after camp David ? For me the bomb-ress must be the most stupid among terrorists / bank robbers / pickpockets to be caught the way she was caught - the cameras following her all the way home ! Or was she ? I bet what happend was the Turkish security police had a list of 50-60 Kurdish activists around town and after the incident they caught one of them at random.

He was decent yesterday. Also Bats is like a scorpion. You see him, you say "this player is useless", then he bites.

This is silly. They had better make it like basket ball with clock. Work out the average time of real action in football matches and fix the duration of the matches to that time.

8 minutes extra time at 6-0 !

Look, CR7 is one of my legends and I rate him higher than the miserable short one. But look what happened with Marcelo at Olympiakos Piraeus. He could n't move his a*se against the likes of Ionikos-Levadiakos. Returned to Madrid to seek employment from his old club as an adviser to the board.

They are rubbish. They lost a bagfull of goals but what you show from them was due to the Japanese being short and hence easily dribbled. Against the likes of Wales they were going to lose 3-0.

Idiots lost the war, now Japan.

salam aleko

Mendy is to blame for Netherland's second - he should have used his palms to send the ball out for a corner kick. For the first I don't know, maybe because he is not big enough.

Ttrump is a handicap for the reps. Anyone else would have beaten Hillary Clinton by four clear points. His antics were good for the preliminaries but he wasted his chance to become an ecumenical president. He then became involved in the attack against Capitol hill - in KNE fashion (communist youth of Greece).

From what I see the wooden spoon goes to Ghana, they are rated below Saudi Arabia. Is that right ? Also what do you think about Argentine's Lautaro Martinez ? I backed him for top scorer at 25 to 1.

Look, during the last years of Abramovitch it was City going from strength to strength and 'pool to a certain extent while we struggled. Maybe Roman was unhappy with the various restrictions placed upon him - even before the big events of Ukraine. We all know he is blameless of course and aside of the Ukrainians themselves he is the biggest loser from this war. Now we have Boehly. His record so far -the summer transfer window- is not great but maybe his advisers are also not good enough.

Lately I like Nkunku (Leipsig), Leao (AC Milan) and also Lautaro Marinez (Inter Milan). Any chance ?