British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

indiana wrote:

---

So Mbappe, Haaland and Messi joined the party with 7 goals in total. Can Harry Kane join in?

Most goals overall in World Cup Finals tournaments :

1. Klose GER  16
1. Messi ARG  16
3. Ronaldo BRA  15
4. Muller GER  14
4. Mbappe FRA  14
6. Fontaine FRA  13

---

 PS - all those names are revered really as icons of the game, one way or another (Fontaine presumably was!) Gerd Muller definitely from my era as a young lad. Klose, though - tops the list and yet I don't think he has ever been held anywhere near the stature of someone who tops that list (not saying he should be -I personally can't even recall a thing about his club career).  

indiana wrote:

---

I reckon Portugal will be better without Ronaldo starting. But will they start without him?

---

 Agreed - Messi won the GOAT debate over Ronaldo IMO, and Ronaldo is now an aging liability for a team like Portugal. But will they play without him, that is a good question? Mmm. 

England now appear to have a much better in-game manager than Southgate was. Tuchel kept them going for it.

That's a worry 

JonH wrote:

---

That was fun! Bellingham was great; and Anderson is immense. Going forward, England are up there. 

---

The second half was & Bellingham's going to have to get his act together for more than one half if he's to continue as the N° 10 in preference to Morgan Rogers (IMHO he was poor in the first), but TT's going to have to do something to tighten up the defence before we come up against an even better side than Croatia.   Given the change in the team's approach at the start of the second half, I assumed that TT must have put a rocket up its respective highly paid arses, but this paragraph in Jonathan Northcroft's match report in The Times gave me pause for thought:

In a remarkable half-time interview on ITV, Tuchel's assistant, Anthony Barry, said the team showed "fearful patterns" and his boss was going to have to talk to them about that. It is extraordinary to see and hear an England coaching team speak with such frankness and Tuchel told the players to be braver, saying: "Look, if we lose we lose, but we lose our way." And everything changed.

One thing's for sure:  he's not going to dither over tactical substitutions in good time as Southgate used to do.   

Estimates of 50,000 Scots fans in Boston and I read not a single arrest.

The pipes led march from Boston Common to Fenway Park and the take-over of much of the stadium for a Boston Red Sox baseball game, where they went through their repetoire of songs, while generally not having a clue what was happening on the field, was quite brilliant. The locals were very bemused but have made the fans most welcome. Plenty stuff on YouTube.

Hope for a great result tonight and move to 4 points at least, remaining on 3 points would be rather uncomfortable. Then we can get out of town before most of the English arrive and pick up the party in Miami.