Two! New! 💙 Barmy Venues, Harry, Jude and Sub (Trumpto(w)n). World Cup 1 & Albion Latest

Yeah, I mean, the tournament is bloated, isn't it? So it's the first of the 48 club ones.

But it hasn't led to a deterioration in quality.

In fact, the games that I've seen have been really, really enjoyable.

So that's probably the first thing that I want to raise about it, which is a

positive note.

Absolutely.

And while I'm against it expanding, because it is bloated, it does saturate football even more.

And UEFA aren't going to budge, Premier League and other national leagues aren't going to budge.

So it's just going to mean more saturation if, as I suspect, they'll carry on with this format.

But you're right, yeah, it hasn't deteriorated the quality.

And the one very, very good thing about this format is that it's given countries, nations, much more of a chance to...

To be on the world stage for the first time and to share in that joy and that fun and all that razzmatazz around this amazing tournament as it always is from a fan viewing point of view, even this one with various issues we might get on to talk about later.

But we've got four debutants and it's Jordan, Cabo Verde, it's Curacao, the smallest nation in there, I think only 50,000 inhabitants I think or something mad like that.

And it is Uzbekistan as well.

So those are the four new countries involved.

You've got countries like Haiti who have not been in for a very long time.

You've got DR Congo who were last in under a different name 52 years ago, Zaire.

And they got thrashed in all three games and didn't score a goal and obviously didn't get a point.

This time they've already got a point.

And that was quite entertaining, I have to say, as well.

so it's been yeah it's been a very interesting tournament so far it started off in Mexico with the opening ceremony quite a lot of colour and razzmatazz around that a 2-0 win for the hosts against a pretty poor South Africa side Canada couldn't quite win in what was actually the very next game home to Bosnia and Herzegovina which was a one-all draw

I saw that one I mean Canada were Really good on the ball, but couldn't put it in the back of the net.

Yeah, which apparently has been an issue for them for some time, yeah.

And the United, after South Korea beat the Czechs 2-1, the United States got off to a flyer, 4-1 against Paraguay, who I thought, despite having the marvellous Diego Gomez in there and the marvellous former Albion player Julio Enciso, who defied the injury odds and actually started in the game, they still lost 4-1.

They look pretty poor.