The World Cup is a tournament about winning football matches, right? There’s always a winner and a loser, that’s the point of sports. Well, not on Monday. Yesterday was the Day of Draws – all four games ended in a deadlock with the teams each receiving a point instead of three. How dull, right? WRONG! All of these matches were compelling in their own way, from the heroics of Cape Verde’s scoreless draw against powerhouse Spain to the bonkers bad-football intensity of Iran vs. New Zealand late at night.
Sure, there were no winners on Monday, but if you look at it another way EVERYONE was a winner on Monday.
Here’s your daily recap and upcoming matches for today, Tuesday.
Day 5 Recap
Spain 0-0 Cape Verde (Group H)
Goals: [none]
We here at Carty Free Towers generally hate defend-and-counter tactics, especially in international football. We will gladly make an exception for Cape Verde. The Blue Sharks put in a defensive masterclass against the World Cup favorites Spain on Monday, conceding 74% of possession and losing the xG battle 2.16-0.28. But they defended like maniacs, only gave up ONE FOUL the entire match, and held one of the best international teams in the world to a scoreless draw. A remarkable result, and one of the great “upsets” of the tournament thus far. An unexpected side effect is that this makes the possibility of a Spain-Argentina R16 match up much more likely than beforehand. Maybe scoreless draws are actually good?
Belgium 1-1 Egypt (Group G)
Goals: Ashour (19’), Hany [OG] (66’)
This is one of the weaker Belgium World Cup sides in recent history, and they got all they could handle against Mohamed Salah’s Egypt, conceding a thunderbolt goal to Al-Ahly’s Emam Ashour to end the “first quarter” down a goal and failing to convert some good chances down the stretch. Romelu Lukaku, who is looking uhhhhh a little larger than I remember him, was a big presence in the box and helped facilitate the equalizing own goal. One of these two teams is likely to win Group G. I have no idea which one it’ll be.
Saudi Arabia 1-1 Uruguay (Group H)
Goals: Al Amri (41’) | Araújo (80’)
A gritty, sometimes violent, and ultimately… fair? draw between the other two teams in Group H. Both teams seemed to choose violence as there was a lot of hard tackling in this one, and the ref seemed to lose control at certain points of the match. I think Uruguay’s the better side, but they didn’t especially play like it in this one; I’m not sure super-frantic Bielsa ball matches up well with this Uruguay team. With Spain and Cape Verde also drawing, all four teams now have a point after the first round. Rodrigo Bentancur ran around a lot (as he does) but didn’t seem to have too much of an impact on the overall course of the match.
Iran 2-2 New Zealand (Group G)
Goals: Ramin (31’), Mohebi (64’) | Just (7’, 53’)
OK, this match was super fun. I know there are a lot of sociopolitical stuff surrounding Iran’s participation in this particular World Cup, but the SoFi Stadium was jam packed with Iranian fans (and Mexican fans rooting for Iran). Iran’s a squad full of old players and most of them haven’t played club football since February after their league was cancelled, so we wondered if they’d run out of gas against a surprisingly competent New Zealand team looking for their first ever World Cup win. Nottingham Forest striker Chris Wood is New Zealand’s star, but it was Motherwell legend (??) Elijah Justin wbo scored a brace for New Zealand putting him tied at the top of the Golden Boot rankings. Iran then came back to level the score twice and came close to winning a couple more times down the stretch. This wasn’t exactly champagne football, but it was absolutely a super fun game worth staying up late for.
Day 6 Matches
France vs. Senegal (Group I)
3 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. BST
MetLife Stadium, New Jersey, USA
TV: FOX (USA), Telemundo (USA – Español), BBC One (UK)
Stream: Fox One, Peacock (Español)
Current/former Tottenham players involved: Pape Matar Sarr (Senegal)
Iraq vs. Norway (Group I)
6 p.m. ET / 11 p.m. BST
Gillette Stadium, Boston, Massechusetts, USA
TV: FOX (USA), Telemundo (USA – Español), BBC One (UK)
Stream: Fox One, Peacock (Español)
Current/former Tottenham players involved: none
Argentina vs. Algeria (Group J)
9 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. (Tuesday) BST
Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
TV: FOX (USA), Telemundo (USA – Español), ITV 1 (UK)
Stream: Fox One, Peacock (Español)
Current/former Tottenham players involved: Cuti Romero (Argentina)
Austria vs. Jordan (Group J)
12 a.m. (Tuesday) ET / 5 a.m. (Tuesday) BST
Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, California, USA
TV: Fox Sports 1 (USA), Telemundo (USA – Español), BBC One (UK)
Stream: Fox One, Peacock (Español)
Current/former Tottenham players involved: Kevin Danso (Austria)
