The ongoing FIFA football world cup continues to thrill, excite, delight and dismay the world with the some of the giants of the game exiting early and some new stars emerging. The quarterfinals have set up some interesting semi-final clashes; some surprising and some rather less so.
The quarter final between Belgium and Brazil had everyone glued to the action. The Belgians simply seemed to take the match away from the Brazilians. They amazed and delighted fans by beating the mighty Brazilians 2-1.
On Twitter they find some hidden pattern in everything. Apparently, there is one here as well. So will Belgium win their first ever title? Lots of neutral fans are rooting for them.
The Brazilians are known to be a completely football crazy nation. Being knocked out of the world cup had to hurt; really hurt.
Champions Germany, Argentina, Portugal and Mexico’s exits really pained their fans. They don’t have a lot of sympathy for Brazil it would seem.
The other big quarterfinal was between France and Uruguay with the latter team’s above par performance in the competition giving a lot of hope to fans. This picture of Uruguay’s José Giménez’s despair two minutes before the final whistle encapsulates the feelings of the team supporters as a valiant team exited the competition.
The match was memorable for reasons other than the actual play; there was some serious glowering, shoving and other overt displays of aggression on the field.
Each time Brazilian legend Neymar has been involved in any kind of physical aggression or accident on the field, he is seen to overreact. This is spawned a series of memes such as this one.
The rolling around in supposed pain with an agonized look on the face has become so characteristic of Neymar; here he is seen to be giving tips to Mbappe, France’s rising star.
But then why blame these two – it’s pretty much the done thing: to milk the situation for any possible penalties that can be extracted from the referee. Perhaps the show is more for the sympathy that may be obtained from fans and spectators; but it is widely perceived that the players are just overdoing the theatrics. It seems to be a case of what’s the harm in trying. What’s a little playacting /overacting when there is some benefit to be extracted from the situation? All is fair in love and war; this clearly is war.
The third and fourth quarter finals happen later today to decide which two teams will face off in the other semifinals (France and Belgium going up against each other in the first semifinal). Today Sweden take in England and hosts Russia take on Croatia.
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