Good morning, TSFers! As I write this, I’ve got the second half of Austria-Jordan going on the second monitor. It turns out a 12 am kickoff is too late for me. The West Coast has it best for U.S.-based sports. I suppose this is the balancing out of us east coasters getting 7 am kickoffs in the Premier League as opposed to 4 am.
Today is the final day of MD1 fixtures and England (and therefore Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Ebere Eze, and Noni Madueke) enter the fray.
Portugal vs. DR Congo, 1 pm ET, FOX
England vs. Croatia, 4 pm ET, FOX Ghana vs. Panama, 7 pm ET, FS1 Uzbekistan vs. Colombia, 10 pm ET, FS1
France 3 – Senegal 1
You could have watched just the second half of this match and not missed much of anything. The first half was sloppy, particularly from France. Kylian Mbappe opened the scoring in the 66th minute, and Arsenal-linked Bradley Barcola doubled the lead in the 82nd minute off the bench. Ibrahim Mbaye pulled one back in the 95th minute and we looked set for a frantic finish, but Mbappe scored his second a minute later to put an end to that.
Norway 4 – Iraq 1
Erling Haaland scored in the 29th minute to stake Norway to a 1-0 lead, but Iraq got back on level terms 10 minutes later on a lovely header from Aymen Hussein. Haaland charged down the Iraqi keeper to block a scrambled clearance into the back of the net to restore the lead before halftime. Leo Ostigard headed home a Martin Ødegaard corner midway through the second half — fantastic use of MEATWALL. The Iraqi goalscorer Hussein sliced in an own goal very late to make it 4-1.
Argentina 3 – Algeria 0
It’s the Leo Messi show! The GOATs hat trick draws him level with Miro Klose’s record haul of 16 World Cup goals. Messi has scored 5 goals in his last 2 World Cup matches and has scored in 4 or 5 consecutive games at the WC, too. Luca Zidane, yes Zinadine’s son, had an alright game in goal for Algeria. He made some smart saves but also struggled at times with his rebound control.
A few other takeaways:
- Rightsholders will be thrilled with a day that had braces from Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland to go along with a Leo Messi hat trick.
- France looks like they may have enough talent to overcome Didier Deschamps’ tactical shackles. Perhaps that’s why he tries to rein his squad in. He knows that they’ll work their magic on the attacking end and so he figures that if he makes them even a bit more defensively responsible, they’ll be a threat.
- Norway’s defense didn’t look fantastic, particularly in the first half. They’ll need to tighten up if they want to be the darkhorses that many have picked them to be. Ødegaard, Musa, Sorloth, and Haaland is a potent attacking force, though.
- Argentina are better than I realized. Query how stern of a test Algeria pose, though.
- It’s tough to get a read on the teams that have played the favorites. The top countries are really good when they’re on form.
