With the last fixtures in each group being played this week, the World Cup games are getting a bit more exciting. All the trash teams like South Korea (no offence) who have unnecessarily taken up 90 minutes of our time are being swept aside and the teams we expected to progress are advancing to the round of 16. Let’s review the last games in groups A and B.
Group A
I was secretly… okay openly, hoping Russia get eliminated from this group because as a South African I still hate being the only host country to be knocked out of the tournament’s group stage.
Plus we may have had the most difficult group in World Cup history, France, Mexico, and Uruguay… All these teams were in the top 20 of the FIFA rankings… it’s bullshit we ended up being grouped with those guys.
I had hoped Egypt would represent the continent well, Uruguay were the favourites and Saudi Arabia had never won a FIFA World Cup game.
Uruguay 3 – 0 Russia
These two teams had already qualified for the round of 16, they were just playing for the top spot to avoid a possible game against Spain. Uruguay scored first… the rest was history, this must have been the most boring 3-0 game I have watched in my life.
The Russian team had many people fooled into thinking they were a half decent team but their true colours were exposed by Uruguay.
Saudi Arabia 2 – 1 Egypt
With a game that had nothing but pride at stake, Egypt started the game the brightest and scored the first goal through [insert applicable name here].
As the game went on Saudi Arabia looked the better team and were rewarded with a penalty. The Egyptian keeper Essam El-Hadary, who became the oldest player to play in a World Cup at 178 years old, saved the penalty.
45 – Essam El-Hadary will become the oldest player ever to appear in a World Cup game (45 years & 5 months). Pharaoh. #SAUEGY #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/YP66B4dK7u
— OptaJean (@OptaJean) June 25, 2018
But that wasn’t to stop the Saudi’s who found a way to get another penalty decision and a late winner.
Group B
I and many other ‘soccer pundits’ predicted Portugal, with the GOAT (no offence to Lionel Messi) and Spain, with… uhm… tiki-taka? would have an easy time handling Iran and Morocco, well… that wasn’t exactly what happened.
Iran 1 – 1 Portugal
It should have been a routine game for Portugal but it ended up being a dogfight for a point. Iran played with heart and should have won the game. They went down late in the first half thanks to this ridiculous goal by Ricardo Quaresma.
In the second half, Iran came back strong but gave away a penalty because of a bogus VAR* decision.
*Sidenote: VAR is trash it seems like the referees have to always change their decision after they have looked at the screen which is bullshit.
Ronaldo missed it and in the 90+3 minute, Iran got another crappy VAR decision to gift them a penalty which they scored. Portugal escaped with one point to see them through to a last 16 game against Uruguay.
https://twitter.com/gole_yaas/status/1011340659662282752
Spain 2 – 2 Morocco
I feel for Morocco. They were clearly the better team against Iran and Portugal but they lost. I expected Spain to tiki-taka them to death and cruise to a win.
The Spanish didn’t make it easy for themselves as they conceded a goal as a result of a mix up by Iniesta and Ramos.
But they swiftly equalised…
They had things under control but their tiki-taka kung fu didn’t open up Morocco’s defence. With 10 minutes to go, Morocco scored via a set piece to put them ahead, it seemed like the game-winner. But, Iago Aspasse scored a goal which was ruled out for offside but then allowed due to the VAR.