Iceland in World Cup

[Michael]

Originally Posted by NickKIELCEPoland

I don't know what you mean by that.

Some background... in 1986 Italy won the World Cup. Toronto has a massive Italian community and they celebrated the victory with several spontaneous street parties, and lots of cars filled with people driving around waving Italian flags.

Well, Toronto has fairly large immigrant communities from just about every country on the globe and they all seem to be desperate to copy the Italian 1986 event. The desperation to parade their ethnic nationalism is obvious. So when World Cup begins, we get thousands of cars driving around waving flags and honking their horns on a daily basis and trying to block street traffic to create a street party after every fucking game (even though the number of supporters/fans engaged is way too small to achieve this). Most of these immigrant communities don't have the large number or mass support that countries like Italy have here (Italy, England and Germany are by far the largest community fan/groups for World Cup here).

And this year, the Portuguese and Croatians seem to be the most obnoxious about it, hence my desire to see these teams eliminated, though my friend insists that the Uruguay fans are worse. It all seems to be just an orgy of ethnic nationalism and it isn't pretty.

Btw, it seems that the fans of Brazil, Argentina, Italy, England and Germany don't do the obnoxious 'hooliganism' thing and await final victory before trying to do the traffic-blocking street party thing. Not so with the smaller countries who try to do it after every game and are the obnoxious ones.

[NickKIELCEPoland]

Originally Posted by Michael

Some background... in 1986 Italy won the World Cup. Toronto has a massive Italian community and they celebrated the victory with several spontaneous street parties, and lots of cars filled with people driving around waving Italian flags.

Well, Toronto has fairly large immigrant communities from just about every country on the globe and they all seem to be desperate to copy the Italian 1986 event. The desperation to parade their ethnic nationalism is obvious. So when World Cup begins, we get thousands of cars driving around waving flags and honking their horns on a daily basis and trying to block street traffic to create a street party after every fucking game (even though the number of supporters/fans engaged is way too small to achieve this). Most of these immigrant communities don't have the large number or mass support that countries like Italy have here (Italy, England and Germany are by far the largest community fan/groups for World Cup here).

And this year, the Portuguese and Croatians seem to be the most obnoxious about it, hence my desire to see these teams eliminated, though my friend insists that the Uruguay fans are worse. It all seems to be just an orgy of ethnic nationalism and it isn't pretty.

Btw, it seems that the fans of Brazil, Argentina, Italy, England and Germany don't do the obnoxious 'hooliganism' thing and await final victory before trying to do the traffic-blocking street party thing. Not so with the smaller countries who try to do it after every game and are the obnoxious ones.

Thank you. But could you please go into more detail about what the Croatian and Portuguese fans have done which you resent?

[NickKIELCEPoland]

England have reached the quarter-final. This is their best competition achievement in any competition since 2006. They reached a(!) quarter-final in 2012 too, but that was the Euro quarter-final, which, while honorable, isn't as prestigious as a World Cup quarter-final. Gareth Southgate is the coach and he deserves great praise for having lifted England out of the doldrums! Well done, Gareth Southgate! Also, Harry Kane, has been a magnificent forward. Well done to him!

[NickKIELCEPoland]

Frace v Belgium in one of the semi-finals. Will it be Victor Hugo or Georges Simenon?

[Michael]

I've got my money on France to win it all.

Though, I will cheer for Belgium for Dominick!

[NickKIELCEPoland]

Originally Posted by Michael

I've got my money on France to win it all.

Though, I will cheer for Belgium for Dominick!

May I ask when you made the bet? Before the World Cup started?

[Michael]

Originally Posted by NickKIELCEPoland

May I ask when you made the bet? Before the World Cup started?

No, at the quarter-final stage with 8 teams. To my mind, they look like the strongest team with very good defense.

I'd love to see a France-UK final, that would be awesome!

[NickKIELCEPoland]

Originally Posted by Michael

No, at the quarter-final stage with 8 teams. To my mind, they look like the strongest team with very good defense.

I'd love to see a France-UK final, that would be awesome!

Thank you.

[NickKIELCEPoland]

The final will be France v Croatia.

[Tom Palven]

Originally Posted by NickKIELCEPoland

The final will be France v Croatia.

It should be a great match.

Here's a good article from The Guardian on yesterday's game:
https://www.theguardian.com/football...ld-cup-croatia