Tunisia V England World Cup 2018

Tunisia V England

(Synopsis in red)

Pregame bets:

€10.00 Single
Tunisia v England – England scores 2+ goals & 6+ England corners 17/10

€2.00 Single
Tunisia v England – Correct Score 0-3 17/2

Full betting review here>https://www.thisdrinkinglife.com/top-bets-of-the-world-cup-2018/

Get in you beauty, I will take that!!! Phew left it late though, but should have had it up way before the end, England always make it hard for themselves!!! Good man Kane.

Beers: Group G of Beer World Cup:

World Cup of Beer Group G

As Tunisia is another Muslim nation where beer is hard to come by, I will be only drinking the one beer for the game. But what a beer that is, London Pride is a fantastic beer, and got to the final in my last World Cup, so will enjoy drinking it again today.

London Pride, excellent beer, really top class and so smooth and silky. Love this beer. One nil to the England!

PreGame:

Things appear to be a little different this time with England. Under Gareth Southgate their seems to be far less pressure and expectations on this team from the media and the general public. A team that qualified with relative ease, 8 points to spare and unbeaten, Southgate has done well since he took over the hot seat from Sam Allardyce.

There is a quiet confidence with this England team and the manager has also done very well to blood the team with a lot of new young players and letting some big names retire early. This is an England team without the big stars and big egos of English teams past. Wayne Rooney is finally gone, thank Christ, and there are no Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Owens type players to raise expectations. Ok Harry Kane could arguably fill that bracket, but he is still relatively unproven at international level, and with him we have Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Danny Rose and Dele Alli, a bunch of players who have had good seasons with their clubs the last few years,

Tunisia: Their squad doesn’t show much to excite. A few players from the local Tunisian league and quite a few that play in France, but no stand put player. Added to this fact is that they will also be losing their main striker to injury, Youssef Msakni, the top scorer in the qualifying campaign, and that further dents any chances they might have had. In a group with Belgium and England I am sorry to say I dont expect a whole lot from Tunisia. Even in the Panama game, where they might be already out at that stage, they might struggle. I fear for them, I really do, sorry Tunisia!

Against Tunisia today I feel that England should have too much for them, I think they will have them for pace, especially down the flanks and with Kane, and perhaps Vardy, up front, they have two well established goalscorers who should be able to get on the score sheet against a relatively weak Tunisian defence.

A more detailed review on Tunisia here and on England here

Wow, England left it very late, always making it hard for their fans, but they got there in the end and deservedly got the three points. Would have been a complete travesty if they had not as I feel the penalty was a terrible decision and the ref never gave them much throughout the whole game. Tunisia were playing puke football all match and were lucky to even get one goal never mind a draw.

Started very brightly, Deli Alli was sprightly and on fire early on, while Sterling missed a complete sitter. England were strong in attack and caused Tunisia all sorts of problems that they couldn’t cope with. Sure enough England scored early, with a Stone header not saved well and Kane with the rebound. A real poachers goal.

Sterling wasn’t the only player with no shooting boots on, Lingard could have done better with his simple chances too. But just when you were thinking who is going to score the second goal for England, a penalty is giving to Tunisia for a rather innocuous challenge by Walker on Ben Youssef who fell to the ground like a sack of spuds. And the clowns in VAR still got it wrong. Never a penalty. If that is a penalty then the EPl would have about ten a game. Terrible decision by all involved. Tunisia’s Ferjani Sassi stepped up to equalize from the penalty spot. It was all the more galling that the ref kept missing how Kane was wrestled to the ground for virtually every corner (expect the last one funnily enough!)

That penalty kind of rattled England a bit and they started to fanny around the pitch as they sometimes like to do, aimless balls and passing back and forth with no decisiveness. Always so frustrating to watch at times, these millionaire footballers so inept at playing what should be a simple game. Alli faded badly in the second, and Sterling was his usual crap self for England, and just when you were losing all hope to live, England get a corner, and to be honest you kind of felt they might jam in a goal from it. And they did. Kane again, good goal, great to get the space and England survive for another day.

To be fair to England they did well up against a very cynical and dirty Tunisian team and against a ref who gave them nothing in the game. They played well in patches, Stones in particular had a good second half, and when the chips were down they did step up and grind out that victory. I think that was a decent enough performance all things considering. They should steamroll Panama now, while Tunisia might be lucky to get a draw with a similar performance against Belgium, perhaps.

Music to get you in the mood

Hedi Habbouba & Olfa ben Romdan : Folklore Tunisien (Tunisia) V New Order – True Faith (England)