2-1 France, 55

It would be good for PSG to have all the players in their great trio to come back to the team without suffering an injury. Neymar is already back at the team and they are hoping to see the same for Messi - Mbappe duo after the World Cup finale. Because this match will be a really tough one and the defenses might be rougher than ever. Messi and Mbappe both are key players for their national teams in the end.

Neymar has been a more injury-prone player than these two so PSG must be still comfortable about this. Neymar even suffered an injury during the World Cup but they must be grateful that it wasn't a serious one. They need all these three stars against Bayern Munich to increase their chance of advancing to the quarter finals.

Saka is a really important player for Arsenal indeed. His contribution level to the team is increasing by every season. He is a player who has grown from Arsenal youth as well so this would be enough for indicating how crucial player he is for the team. His current market value has already reached 90 million euros. It is a quite high number for a 21-year-old player.

Arsenal will need to start negotiations with him for a contract extension after hearing about these rumours. Maybe Manchester City wouldn't rush anything in January but in next summer things might get interesting. Saka's current contract ends in the summer of 2024 by the way. It is a quite near date for a star like him.

G2 - FaZe was a really competitive matchup to be honest. The final score might be 2-0 but G2 didn't win comfortably on both maps. But still this result is quite surprising to me because I was favouring FaZe to eliminate them and maintain a good form. They have been inconsistent for a long time and this was their biggest chance to put an end to it.

G2 continue to surprise everyone by beating really tough top tier teams these days. Outsiders, Vitality and now their latest victim is FaZe. I must admit that huNter's performance was amazing today. He got 29 frags on Nuke and 25 frags on Inferno. jks was also great on Nuke.

This was a great clip of jks with 4 kills on the same map : https://clips.twitch.tv/SucculentWiseJellyfishBloodTrail-kEezaxvp3zbJlpul?tt_content=url&tt_medium=clips_api

Gvardiol's first goal was really impressive. It was a well-prepared free-kick organization by Croatia. Perisic made a great assist by a header to Gvardiol and he finished it in the same way. Morocco's goal was an unfortunate incident for Croatia. Because after the cross Majer hit the ball with his head towards their goal and it was easy for Dari to score by a header. Orsic still was there to score the winning goal by a really classy chip shot to the right corner.

Croatia at least finished the tournament as the third team which is still a good success for them.

1) France
2) Over
3) Over
4) Under
5) Over
6) Over   
7) Yes
8.) 2nd

9) No
10) No

11) No
12) No

13) No
14) No

15) No
16) No

17) 31'

I'm also feeling like both teams in the Barcelona vs Manchester United matchup have a 50% chance for next stage. These teams are among the title contenders above all else. On paper, Barcelona are favoured for advancing to next stage maybe but things haven't been going very well for Barcelona in European tournaments like this recently. Their bad performance still persists in this season as well.

If they don't make an improvement in this performance then Manchester United can balance the game in both matches easily. January transfer window can also play a role in determining the winner of this matchup.

Actually Morocco have more than one player who are playing for a decent or big team right now. I can give examples like this:

- Bono => Sevilla
- Mazraoui => Bayern Munich
- Hakimi => PSG
- En Nesyri  => Sevilla

These are the players coming to my mind first now. Besides Saiss is also a really good defender. But when it comes to comparing the general qualities of Croatia and Morocco squads, of course Croatia are better than them. However it is still difficult to predict the winner of the consolation match. Croatia look like one step ahead for now in my opinion.

Manchester City are said to have transferring Bellingham and Saka in their plans. However especially Bellingham rumour doesn't seem sensible to me. Because Manchester City don't need such player in their midfield now. Their midfield is already very strong. There is no need to splurge on another youngster. This transfer would just cause some unease among the attacking midfielders especially. The number of alternatives will be so many and Guardiola can have difficulty in making all the talented players satisfied.

Saka transfer can be good actually because they have only one player on each wing as natural wingers now - Mahrez and Grealish. But Arsenal would demand a lot of money for Saka as he is one of the crucial players for them.

Natus Vincere are still a disappointment as a team I'm afraid. I also admired s1mple and b1t against Liquid today but Natus Vincere were still desperate at the end. This is a quite early elimination after Major. Things are still going really bad for the team. s1mple made a statement before this tournament started. He said that they should focus on their next events by forgetting about the previous victories. He made a really good point because maybe the current situation is due to being complacent.

There is a big improvement in G2's performance surprisingly these days. They have eliminated Vitality by 2-1 as well. Especially their Nuke performance was spectacular (16-3). Anubis was the map bringing them their victory. But FaZe is going to be another huge obstacle for them. I think FaZe seem to be the only team that can stop them among the remaining teams.

For now it has started to seem to me like PSG are getting more favourite in their matchup against Bayern Munich. The recent injury news are making me think like this. Because Neuer is out for the rest of the season and Bayern Munich might not be comfortable in defense if they don't fill his place with a reliable goalkeeper.

In addition to that Mane is also injured and it is possible not to see him in the first leg. Because he might not be ready until mid February at least. Of course the team don't consist of only these players but these are both crucial players for the team. PSG had better do their best to keep the trio healthy until then.

I think Livakovic has been a more attention getting goalkeeper than Bono in the World Cup so far. He was even the man of the match against Brazil. He is a much younger goalkeeper than Bono at the same time.

Considering all these things, I think it would be better for Bayern Munich to push for Livakovic. Dinamo Zagreb is his current team and his contract lasts until 2024. But when it comes to getting an offer from a top team like Bayern Munich, I guess things would change for Livakovic. He would be the main goalkeeper in the absence of Neuer in the end.

In the World Cup history, Brazil and Italy have been the only teams with back-to-back title winnings. Both of them did this a very long time ago indeed. It is harder to do it in today's football I think. Because the competition level is much higher than the past. We have witnessed a great example of it like Morocco's eliminating big teams like Spain and Portugal. They played really good against France as well.

However France have a really big opportunity to win the title two times in a row. Argentina is a really big obstacle for them. Most probably they won't be comfortable in this match at all. Messi have showed impressive performances and Argentina have played a very effective attacking game so far. I think the winner might be decided by extra time or even penalties.

k0nfig was indeed amazing against OG and Natus Vincere both. Even though he was just a stand-in for Heroic it was really an impressive performance. I'm really surprised to see them being eliminated in the tournament this early. I can understand the loss against Natus Vincere maybe but the one against OG was meaningless.

Outsiders were also very bad in this tournament. They were better against Liquid but their matchup against G2 was just horrible. Their performance on Mirage was incredibly bad as they lost by 16-1 which resulted in their elimination by 2-0. It looks like Outsiders players were a little complacent here after winning a Major.

Arsenal have actually been doing pretty good even in times Jesus wasn't able to score any goal. They went on winning by having productive matches in the English Premier League for example. Jesus hasn't been scoring a single goal in all tournaments since October 1. This must have affected his self-confidence in a bad way as well. Now this long running injury is even worse for him.

Arsenal can still go for a temporary striker in January of course. They will have only Nketiah as natural striker in the squad while Jesus is injured. They can secure themselves by doing this. Because if Nketiah also gets injured they would be in trouble.

Eden Hazard could really end up with an MLS team if he doesn't find a proper team in Europe for himself in January. He has been wishing to leave Real Madrid for a long time as far as I know. Chelsea shouldn't have sold him to Real Madrid in the first place but how would they or Hazard know? He could have been playing for Chelsea impressively these days.

I assume Chelsea wouldn't like to see him back now. Because he has had serious injuries so far and he hasn't been playing properly for a long time.

France are so comfortable with their game at the moment. They scored a very early goal by Hernandez. Morocco got really close to equalizing the score after that actually. Ounahi's shot was very effective to the right corner but Lloris made a great save as well. Some time later, Giroud was also so close to making it 2-0. He targeted the goal post while being one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

Morocco are trying their best by playing more attacking in these minutes. France need to take advantage of the spaces Morocco leave and open the score gap more to relieve.

So far I have been able to predict only FaZe's victory.    Even they scared me after losing on the first map which was Nuke. Even though Nuke was not a map that they were performing badly they still lost by a decent score gap. Heroic were the victim of Anubis map. We watched 2 OTs and finally OG won by 22-19. Anubis didn't go well for Outsiders either even though it was their pick actually. 

Now, Natus Vincere - Vitality is going on. There is a 11-11 tie on Inferno - the first map. Natus Vincere picked Nuke and the final map is Mirage. Even if they lose on this map I think they can win the others both. They removed Anubis by the way. They were normally preferring Dust2 a lot but it looks like they aren't ready for Anubis yet.

14. Jared Cannonier
13. Arman Tsarukyan
12. Amir Albazi
11. Julian Erosa
10. Drew Dober
9. Michał Oleksiejczuk
8. Cheyanne Vlismas
7. Jake Matthews
6. Julian Marquez
5. Said Nurmagomedov
4. Rafa García
3. Rinat Fakhretdinov
2. Manel Kape
1. Sergey Morozov


Total Strikes: 81

Cls6363

€17,321