Good morning, TSFers! Remember yesterday how I said the matchups weren’t particularly enticing? Well, they treated us to an excellent day of World Cup action. Today is the second-to-last day of MD1 games. Arsenal’s Martin Ødegaard and William Saliba kick off their World Cup campaigns with Norway and France, respectively.
France vs. Senegal, 3 pm ET, FOX
Iraq vs. Norway, 6 pm ET, FOX
Argentina vs. Algeria, 9 pm ET, FOX
Austria vs. Jordan, 12 am ET, FS1
Spain 0 – Cape Verde 0 A shocking draw for one
of the World Cup favorites. 40-year old Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha had the game of his life and earned a more than 5M person bump in Instagram followers. Spain’s chances to win the tournament don’t take much of a hit from the surprise result, according to the stats folks. It does potentially put them on a much more difficult route through the knockouts should they fail to win the group, though.
Belgium 1 – Egypt 1
The Pharaohs took a 1-0 lead on a magnificent strike from the edge of the box by Emam Ashour to cap off a sweeping, direct attack. It was a lovely move and finish. A Mohamed Hany own goal in the second half split the points. Belgium were disappointing, to say the least. They’ve got several big name players but many of them are a little on the older side. Jeremy Doku had a particularly quiet game.
Saudi Arabia 1 – Uruguay 1
The Saudis took a 1-0 lead late in the first half but couldn’t hold off a second half onslaught from Uruguay. The Arsenal-linked Maxi Araujo (remember him, he committed all those fouls against us) scored the equalizer in the 80th minute. Two draws in Group H means relatively no harm, no foul from the unexpected results.
Iran 2 – New Zealand 2
What a game! Flowing, back-and-forth, evenly-matched teams and four quality goals. Twice Iran pegged New Zealand back to split the points. Motherwell’s Elijah Just scored both goals for the Kiwis, with Chris Wood instrumental in the buildup. Ramin Rezaeian and Mohammad Mohebi scored for Iran.
