France, Spain, Argentina, and England. I guess I predicted three out of four semi-finalists correctly. Which I thought was pretty good. Until I realised these are the 4 top-ranked teams in the world. And FIFA drew these teams so they wouldn’t meet until the semi-finals. So, I’m not that special after all.
Actually – maybe I am special in a different way. What I mean is I predicted Brazil would be the team to win the World Cup. And they were swiftly eliminated at the round of 16. A jinx-prediction, if you’d like.
Therefore, I’m putting all my eggs in the French basket.
Let’s be real – they are the clear favourites. They have gotten to this point without really getting out of second gear. Mbappe is on fine form. Scoring and then some.
BUT don’t rule out Spain – or rather Mikel Merino. If the two teams are tied in the 85th minute, the french should shiver in their boots. Merino for the Ballon d’Or. You heard it here first.
Do you think that jinxes France and Spain enough? Hopefully I haven’t jinxed Merino. He had me celebrating Spain’s winner as if I were celebrating an Arsenal title win on Friday night. Took a while for the emergency services to come and get me down from the lamppost.
Seriously though, what a striker Arsenal have turned Merino into. All these worries about whether we have enough up top, who Arsenal really missed last season was our best striker! To be fair I really wanted him to play more of a role in the Champions League final. Yes, that’s right, I’m STILL not over the final loss.
At this point we should just give Merino the soon-to-be vacated (possibly) no.9 shirt.
I haven’t seen many of Argentina’s games during this World Cup. Seems like they squeezing through the knockout games rather than winning convincingly. But you just can’t rule them out – on more than one occasion they’ve made the comeback. I’m more of a Messi guy than a Ronaldo guy – but outside of Messi (and maybe Alvarez if he signs for Arsenal) I don’t really like them.
Looking at France, Argentina, and Spain – I don’t really want any of them to win the World Cup because it’ll just feel a bit meh. Each of those teams have had major success the last few tournaments. Let someone else have it.
And that brings us to England. Can they really do it? I fancy them against Argentina, but I can’t help but feel it’s got France written all over it. (Jinx, jinx, jinx, jinx, jinx)
I struggled with the Norway v England game. I spent the day doing gardening and chores in the sweltering heat. Come extra time and I was nodding off. I remember Bellingham’s second goal and thinking “Could you not have scored that at the end of 90 mins?!“.
Though I’m still supporting England and celebrate their goals and wins, I’m still nowhere near devastated when we concede. Would be great for the nation if we were to do it – bringing everyone together – cheers, hugs, vandalising, whatever you’re into.
The team are still looking a bit leggy – and by that I mean Rice and Saka. They are going to be so messed up when they’re returned to Arsenal. But by this point, all the remaining Arsenal players are going to have to keep going until pretty much the last game of the season.
Three out of the four remaining teams have Arsenal representation. Maybe even all four if we were to sign Alvarez. I’m not really caring for these links to Alvarez. He’s a great player – but do we really want to sign a player who very obviously wants to play elsewhere?
So yeah, there’s a very good chance one of the Arsenal lads will be “coming home” with the World Cup. Gosh, if they don’t that’s going to be one miserable dressing room!
On paper the semi-finals look very tasty. But usually the more a game is hyped, the crappier it is – jinx, jinx, jinx etc.
Anyway – if you haven’t already seen, I’ve continued sketching via the OddSketch – see the post here. But here’s a taster if that click is just one step too far.
Chat to you next week – when we WILL have a World Cup winner. Unless Trump decides to get involved again.
