World Cup Open Thread Day Three

Welcome back to your ongoing open threads. I’m still on vacation in Florida but won’t leave you high and dry without a thread to talk about the matches.

Day three of action at the World Cup has one mismatch, one intriguing matchup, and one that might result in the destruction of an American city. The first one up could be a battering of epic proportions.

Argentina vs. Saudi Arabia

Time: 10:00 AM UK, 5:00 AM ET

Here’s your mismatch of the day, possibly the largest one of the tournament. Argentina are on a “Get Messi his World Cup or die trying” mission. Cuti Romero, if healthy, will start in defense. Former Spurs defender Juan Foyth made the cut as well.

Saudi Arabia are probably the worst team at this tournament and may be nothing more than a speed bump for this Argentina squad who are among the favorites to lift the trophy. This one will get ugly fast.

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Denmark vs. Tunisia

Time: 1:00 PM UK, 8:00 AM ET

Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and former Spurs midfielder Christian Eriksen take on Tunisia in the second match today. Denmark are favorites and while Tunisia aren’t exactly world beaters, I don’t think this is a huge mismatch like the opener. Still, the Danes should get the job done against the Eagles of Carthage, which is admittedly a badass nickname.

Mexico vs. Poland

Time: 3:00 PM UK, 10:00 AM ET

As someone born in the greater Chicagoland area, when I saw the draw and realized Mexico and Poland were in the same group, I thought there might be a war in the Second City. For those who aren’t aware, Chicago has a large population of people with Polish or Mexican heritage, second and fifth in the nation respectively. While we hope it’s just all in good fun to talk about this, there’s a non-zero chance that the city gets by without a handful of calls involving this match.

For the neutrals, this could be a wildly entertaining match. Unlike the first two matches of the day, this one has it as close as 36/32/32 for win/draw percentage. Given that Argentina will almost certainly go through, this match will go a long way to determining who joins them in the knockout round.

France vs. Australia

Time: 7:00 PM UK, 2:00 PM ET

Not sure how I forgot about this but I’m up way too early and caught it when it went live. Thank you Twitter for saying there were four games today! Also, I definitely got messed up on times thanks to being in Central Time Zone for my vacation...

Tottenham Hotspur captain Hugo Lloris is in action against Australia. The current World Champions are in a bit of a pinch with both Karim Benzema and Christopher Nkunku out of the tournament due to injury. The Australians are underdogs here, but the Socceroos aren’t going to back down.

Standard rules apply in the match thread, so please keep it civil and enjoy a day of football.