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Belgium captures third place with a 2-0 win over England. Their best performance so far after their fourth place finish in 1986.

Those British fans must be pissed.

Subacic

Strinic

Pivaric

Modric

Rakitic

Kovacic

Brozovic

Rebic

Mandzukic

Perisic

Kalinic

Kramaric

.......

That is a lot of Tiches, Niches, Riches and Viches.

Modric is the best Iche. I am rooting for Croatia.

For phonetics, I like Rakitic best. Great name.

WestCoastJoe wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:24 pm

Subacic

Strinic

Pivaric

Modric

Rakitic

Kovacic

Brozovic

Rebic

Mandzukic

Perisic

Kalinic

Kramaric

.......

That is a lot of Tiches, Niches, Riches and Viches.

Modric is the best Iche. I am rooting for Croatia.

For phonetics, I like Rakitic best. Great name.

I for the longest time (my hearing is no longer what it was) thought one of their players (Strinic) was in fact Spinic (i.e. Spinache!) and always whenever the play-by-play guy called his name the face of Popeye the Sailor appeared in a word bubble over the pitch in mind's eye). We got really quite silly about all the "itches" one game and came up with additional players that might join the team, such as Jockitch. (Yes, I know, very juvenile!) That said, I love that team and will be cheering little Croatia on, big time!

At halftime, France leading Croatia 2-1 courtesy of an own goal and a penalty kick after a review.
Croatia is known for fighting back after a deficit. It will be an interesting second half.

At least this final will not be a 0-0 tie after 90 minutes like the last two finals and in 1994.

Good second effort after a rebound to give France a 3-1 lead. Just over 30 minutes left. Any life for Croatia?

A long range goal gives France a 4-1 lead. That should be the final nail in the coffin.
I guess Vancouver's Francophone population are celebrating now.
Vancouver also has a sizable Croatian community who are now

The by Croatia has been heard as they got one back courtesy of the French goalkeeper's colossal mistake.
4-2 France with just over 20 minutes left.

It's all over now. France wins 4-2 over Croatia.
With 6 goals, it has tied with the second-highest scoring game in a FIFA World Cup final. After the various low scoring finals, it's time for a higher scoring game.

What I like about this World Cup is that I'd say FIFA has come along ways compared to the 2010 World Cup for both the players and the audience in that:

1. In the 2010 World Cup there was a huge buzzing sound that made it very difficult to listen even for the television audience.

2. More importantly, video review has been implemented. The Crotian hand ball that resulted in second penalty kick goal for France wouldn't have occurred had the referee made a video review. Hopefully with video review there won't be a repetition of Frank Lampard's obvious goal in the 2010 World Cup.

The attached picture shows an extreme rarity in sports team celebrations. We all know that the 3rd place team will celebrate their win with their bronze medals - most recently with Team Belgium as shown above, and of course the 1st place team will do so as well by huddling up for pictures. But the 2nd place team? Never as they feel way too dejected.

I suppose there's always a first time courtesy of Team Croatia as they also celebrated their 2nd place finish. Will this create a precedence of 2nd place finishers content with their silver medals? Unlikely.

As an aside, such huddling for celebrations and pictures are common in soccer and ice hockey, but not in other team sports like football, baseball, or basketball. I wonder why.

WestCoastJoe wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:24 pm

Subacic

Strinic

Pivaric

Modric

Rakitic

Kovacic

Brozovic

Rebic

Mandzukic

Perisic

Kalinic

Kramaric

.......

That is a lot of Tiches, Niches, Riches and Viches.

Modric is the best Iche. I am rooting for Croatia.

For phonetics, I like Rakitic best. Great name.

They do like their itches in Croatia, don't they? It was an increadible team and they played so well. Shame they didn't manage to win the whole thing.

The "-ic" names in the Balkans denote the origin of the first person that bore this name, usually the name of a place (village, river, mountain) or a profession.

It's like Anglo-Saxon names like Parker, Baker...

Fortunately, in my Slavic country (Russia), we've got more variations in our name endings, it allows to compensate for the extreme conservatism in terms of first names (we all know twelve Ivans, eight Olgas, nine Tanyas and six Nikolais).

But to come back to the main topic, that was a World Cup that made me like "European" football/soccer again, the last cups had been boring while this one was full of unexpected things.

The final four for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup has been determined:

England vs. USA
Netherlands vs. Sweden

Any favourites or predictions?

At least one country will be finalist for the first time as neither Netherlands nor Sweden has made it to the final, and neither has England. Previous winners like Japan, Norway, and Germany have been eliminated along with host France.

Sweden has been the huge surprise and in their wins against Canada and Germany, it has been against the flow. They don't get much possession, but with a single possession can end up with a goal. However, they did place third in 2011 and second in the 2016 Olympics. So what's even more surprising may be Netherlands as they've never medaled in the World Cup or Olympics.

One thing I like so far is that since the round of 16, there's only been one game that resulted in a penalty kick shootout. But one thing I didn't like is the inconsistent officiating including video replay. In Netherlands vs. Japan the referee awarded the Dutch a penalty kick after a handball in the penalty area late in regulation. But an obviously handball by USA in the penalty area vs. France was not was not awarded with a penalty kick.

all my favorite teams are out. Three of the remaining teams are teams I didn't want to win. That leaves me with Sweden to cheer for.