Wayne Rooney is currently embarking on his journey to Major League Soccer — DC United to be exact. The Manchester United and England legend has been a rumored transfer target of the MLS club for a couple months now, but there was always a chance that the 32-year-old would elect to stay with Everton in the Premier League.
How time flies when you're having fun. Thursday is the last day of the group stage, which means Groups H and G are in action! Group G is already wrapped up. England and Belgium have already advanced but will need to duke it out for the honor of winning the group (let's be honest, you don't want to win the group with the way the bracket is looking). Group H on the other hand sees Japan, Colombia and Senegal vying for the last two spots.
Meet Leon the Chameleon. Throughout the World Cup he will be predicting matches doing the thing he does best: eating crickets. His first match is a spicy Group G matchup between England and Belgium.
LEON LIKES: BELGIUM
England:
Pickford; Tripper, Walker, Stones, Cahill, Rose; Dier, Loftus-Cheek, Delph; Rashford, Kane
Belgium:
Courtois; Kompany, Boyata, Alderweireld; Meunier, Fellaini, Dembele, Lukaku; T. Hazard, Chadli, Batshuayi
England vs Belgium kicks off Thursday, June 28, at 2:00 p.m. ET on FOX and Telemundo, with the winner taking top spot in Group G. With both nations sitting on six points and with a goal difference of +6, it’s possible a draw could see FIFA fair-play points determine who wins the group. (England currently has one less yellow card than Belgium.)
Today marked the begining of the end for the group stage. Groups A and B played their final games, which is always a cause for drama because most of these games will decide who advances to the Round of 16. There was an enormous amount of people claiming that the refs and the use of VAR was very one-sided in almost every match, which goes to show how big these games were today.
Let’s be honest here. Panama was bad on Sunday. Really bad. Los Canaleros embarrassed Concacaf and every Concacaf nation that didn’t qualify, although no specific nations immediately come to mind. The 6-1 loss for Panama vs England was the worst performance of any team thus far at the World Cup.
England’s putting on a finishing clinic versus Panama to begin Sunday’s World Cup group play. John Stones sent a precise downward header beyond Jaime Penedo to open the scoring, Harry Kane added England’s second with an emphatic penalty and Jesse Lingard added the third with one of the best goals of the tournament so far. A second from Stones and another Kane penalty has England up 5-0 at the half.
Here’s the opener from Stones.
Group H had a surprising start with the two favorites (Colombia and Poland) picking up losses in their first matches. Now the two face a can't-lose match against one on Sunday another while Senegal and Japan will look to build off of their results and get a foot in knockout stage. England will also look to not do any "English" things when it faces off with Panama.