LUFCMOT

In order to reach their first World Cup final since 1966, England must beat the reigning champions and stop the best player of all-time. Sounds scary, doesn’t it? And in many ways it is. Argentina’s pedigree is daunting. The greatest footballer of all-time. A goalkeeper who seems to save all of his best work for huge international games. And nine other lads who will sacrifice anything to win. It’s a formula that saw them make history in 2022, and it has gotten them to the cusp on another final. They’re much more settled and much more experienced than this England team. But are they actually THAT good? They breezed through a poor group before needing extra-time to dismiss Cape Verde, got extremely lucky against Egypt and weren’t able to see off Switzerland in normal time. Outside of Lionel Messi, who Dan Burn can sort out, their most productive player has been Lautaro Martinez with three goal involvements. Bukayo Saka has as many in just two starts. Their over reliance on Lionel Messi is due to catch up with them. It almost happened against the Swiss. The champions looked frustrated and out of ideas and would probably have had no answers against eleven men. Thomas Tuchel’s side have the resilience to frustrate and the fire power to punish. Do you know who England have beaten more times at World Cups than any other team, by the way? Argentina. We believe that England are making the World Cup final.

France vs Morocco Spain vs Belgium Norway vs England Argentina vs Switzerland Out of the above, who can you definitely see in the semi-finals?

Part - 1 Before the whole Suárez saga blew up, when he publicly turned a large part of Uruguay against Marcelo Bielsa, the record spoke for itself. Before the fallout: Wins: 11 Draws: 5 Losses: 3 Then Bielsa made the decision that ultimately caused all the drama. He refused to build the team around a declining Luis Suárez, choosing instead to move towards younger players. Suárez didn’t take it well and went on a public campaign criticising Bielsa, with several players either openly or quietly siding with one of the biggest names in Uruguayan football. Since the fallout: Wins: 5 Draws: 7 Losses: 5 People will point to those results and say Bielsa has suddenly become a bad manager. I don’t buy that for a second. The reality is that once your dressing room becomes divided, results almost always suffer. It doesn’t matter how good the manager is. We’ve seen it happen throughout football history. Tactics can only take you so far when trust inside the squad starts to disappear. What’s funny is that even during all this chaos, Uruguay’s performances haven’t actually been as bad as people make out. They dominated Saudi Arabia 27 shots to 7, outshot Cape Verde 17 to 12, and had a very even game against Spain. They were creating chances. The football was there. The finishing and individual performances weren’t. Some of Uruguay’s biggest players simply haven’t produced. Federico Valverde, who should be leading this team, has been well below the standards expected of one of the world’s best midfielders. When your key players aren’t delivering in decisive moments, that isn’t automatically the manager’s fault.