S12M16: The dark side of the Moon

Well it's here. The last football before the blackhole that is the World Cup 2022.

All the dismay. All the Special Reports, investigative journalism, criminal charges, Human Rights reporting and so on, and we are on the brink.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm absolutely raging. I have very clear memories of World Cup 94. Obviously not watching games - I was too little to be 1) watching football properly 2) USA timezones and 3) England weren't in it because Graham Taylor was a root vegetable.

I had a Gary Lineker Soccer School wall chart however, and I remember filling it in each morning. It's my first active footballing memory, and was followed up a few months later by my first football shirt (August birthday) and my first game (I remember Nigel Spink. I do not remember Andy Townsend being sent off).

So I'm really quite bitter about not being able to engage with this World Cup as my similarly-aged son starts to get into football himself. He's the only reason I'm not engaging in a total boycott of all things World Cup, but I'm pretty torn as to how much to engage.

Are we doing the Panini album? Presumably there's no royalties to FIFA - they've just been paid a lump sum by Panini. That said, the guts of a grand to complete....

Are we doing a wall chart? Probably. Begrudgingly. 

Will we be watching any games together? He told me on the way to school today that he "hopes England win" - this is the problem with this generation.....no appreciation of the Irony of "Football's Coming Home" after the Lioness success this summer. So...does watching constitute supporting? Can you compartmentalise this? Is it all lip service.....there are no shades of grey and you either World Cup or you don't?

So yeah. **** FIFA, **** Blatter, **** the 19 ExCo members - Warner, Blazer, Beckenbauer, Platini etc who did this. 

For the game, my peachy buttocks.

Anyway, we've previously done a thing for World Cups here, but we will not be this year. Check back in 2026. 

Let's get statty

This week, 18 people played

Most popular predicted result: Man City WIN (18/18)
Most disputed prediction: Chelsea vs Arsenal (5-5-8 split)

Highest odds: Steven Daniels (5722/1)

Lowest odds: Josh Daniels (5041/1)

Average odds: 5382/1

Best predictor: Raffi Kleiman & Steven Daniels (7/10)

Worst predictors: David Brickman, Natan Kleiman & Nick Taylor-Collins (3/10)

Average score: 5/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (18/18)
Worst predicted result: Crystal Palace WIN (2/18)

Everyone's results:

The leaderboard (>2/3; >10/14)

To this week's predos:

Good luck, results post next week, then radio silence until mid-December