World Cup, here they go…

Well Ireland are sh**e and we don’t belong at the top table of FIFA’s trough, feasting on all it’s corporate glossed glory. And you can add in Russian corruption and terror stories of Russian hooligans and the mafia. All that aside we’d all love to be there, CHEERING ON Ireland, with our morals out the window. So if you can’t beat em join em, yippee. As we are all football fans, we will inevitably be drawn right into the biggest tournament on the planet once again.

What’s different at this years WC.

1. Well for the first time there will be the VAR system, aka Video Ref (more here) Overall the likelyhood is it will catch most decisions correctly, but there will be one or two games where it will be a boobtastic mess. So expect the VAR question to rumble on until it becomes the norm across football, you can’t halt progress folks.
2. It’s in Russia, shock horror they are the bold boy country of the World, they are run by a despot who will use the World Cup to further enhance his ego on the World Stage..yada.. yada. If you go and look up a map of the world and Wikipedia there are many other countries that fall into this category, and it’s not like the WC hasn’t got previous for this either. And considering the next WC is in Qatar, which is actually a disgrace, Russia doesn’t look too bad.
3. Some huge teams are missing Italy and Holland been the biggest two, with a nod of the head to Copa America winners Chile, and you can throw in, cough Irleand and USA who play each other tomorrow. Who needs the WC right

After all this then a few cheeky bets on it to make it a little more interesting. The world cup betting offers 2018 is a great source to look up if you want to put your money where your mouth is.

So here are Jimmy’s top four tips

1. Brazil to win it. Hardly going out on a limb here, but they really have turned their 7-1 trashing by Germany around and had an excellent qualifying campaign, Neymar’s injury for PSG might be Brazil’s gain.
2. Egypt to make the Quarter Finals, well there is usually a dark horse who makes it this far why not Egypt (but wait and see if Salah can start the first game before backing it). And they have the oldest player to make a WC in their goalkeeper El- Hadary, 44 years old!!
3. Russia to not get out of their group. South Africa were the first team to do it and now Russia can as well. Supposedly their group was fixed to make it easier for them to get out, but they are just a really poor side since Euro 2008.
4. Messi to get player of the tournament. It was bit of a joke he got it last time, but Argentina have been rubbish in the qualifying and he’s had a big rest and well Argentina could just turn it on and have a good WC, and if they do they’ll need Messi to be at his best, or even average is still good enough to win best player by his holy standards.

Words Jim Roberts