After all of the hullabaloo, who here still thinks soccer/futbol is an absolute bore?

The first half hour was dodgy, Senegal had some good chances and could easily have gone 2-0 up. We were lucky.

After we scored it became a lot easier.

It is well known that the Emirate of Qatar is engaged in intensive lobbying in Europe and that Brussels, as the seat of the EU institutions and NATO, is a haven for lobbying. Now, however, the Belgian public prosecutor's office allegedly suspects that the host country of the current World Cup wanted to influence decisions in the heart of the European Union - in the European Parliament - in a criminal way. The public prosecutor's office on Friday confirmed corruption investigations against a "Gulf state", but the Belgian newspaper Le Soir and the Belgian magazine Knack say they have conclusive evidence from several sources that it is Qatar.

Police said they arrested four people and conducted 16 house searches in Brussels today in connection with the investigation. According to reports in the two Belgian media, all those arrested are of Italian origin. They are an Italian Social Democrat who was a member of the EU Parliament from 2004 to 2019, a senior trade union official with worldwide connections, the director of a non-governmental organisation and an assistant working in the European Parliament. All four had been active in human rights organisations, it said. They were to be questioned on Friday, after which they might be brought before a magistrate.

Knack: WK Qatar: 16 huiszoekingen in onderzoek naar corruptie in het Europees Parlement

Le Soir: Soupçons de corruption du Qatar : la vice-présidente du Parlement européen Eva Kaili interpellée

Hats off to Croatia, I thought Brazil would walk it.

Gobsmacked.

My daughter in law is Brazilian, fortunately we're all used to going out on penalties in the quarter finals.

So, Brazil had been criticized for dancing after scoring, with a Spanish commentator saying that Vinicius Junior should stop monkeying around, and the racism controversy that that garnered. Isn't the celebrating after scoring part and parcel of futbol? Has it been more subdued lately compared to past years?

It's football, and Roy Keane has always been an arsehole.

Also, in Portuguese it's futebol.

In bigfoot country, it's fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutbol.

Football is the World's favourite spirt, nothing else comes close, nothing else deserves the name.

The UK voted in a Tory government, aka they're the favourites. Doesn't mean that's a good thing.

That's an awful analogy.

And the Tories are far from everyone's favourite at the moment.

That second French goal looked an awful lot like an own goal.

Eight minutes of extra time??

My point was the incredibly obvious 'most popular does not mean right'.

Well, what a bore-fest that final was! A yawn from start to finish.

Lol! I didn't have a dog in the fight and I was on the edge of my seat.

me neither, but it was epic... glad i stuck with it.

if i ever become an actual fan, i'd have to brush up on the confusing (to me) aspects of the sport -- offsides, tackles and fouls...

You were? I was donating blood at the NY Blood Center and found it painful that all the damn TVs were set to the match. The dullest 30 minutes donating blood since having to sit through donating blood while Olympic curling played on the TV.

Same here. Plus you got to see Messi go out on top. And Mbappe excel. He’s the future-great. I’m no soccer fan by any means but this was good watching (after the first half ended). Helps improve FIFA’s soiled image a bit.