Those late 11PM games today. Nice for New Zealand, I guess…
Friday’s games, again with commentary from Yahoo:
Group I:
Norway (2-0-0) vs France (2-0-0)
Senegal (0-0-2) vs Iraq (0-0-2)
France and Norway will advance, but first place is still up for grabs, while Senegal and Iraq are fighting to stay alive as a third-place team.
Group H:
Cape Verde (0-2-0) vs Saudi Arabia (0-1-1)
Uruguay (0-2-0) vs Spain (1-1-0)
Spain enters the final matchday in strong position and can clinch first place in the group with a win over Uruguay. A draw would also likely be enough.
Cape Verde and Uruguay are both in position to claim the second automatic berth. Cape Verde advances with a win and can also move on with a draw if Spain beats Uruguay. Uruguay advances with a win and could also go through with a draw if Cape Verde fails to win.
Saudi Arabia is alive but likely needs a victory over Cape Verde and help elsewhere.
Group G:
Egypt (1-1-0) vs Iran (0-2-0)
New Zealand (0-1-1) vs Belgium (0-2-0)
Egypt enters the final matchday with first place in Group G within reach. A win over Iran guarantees both a spot in the Round of 32 and the group title.
Belgium needs a win over New Zealand and an Egypt victory to guarantee a spot in the knockout round, while Iran also needs a win and help from Belgium. New Zealand must beat Belgium to stay alive.
Egypt can clinch the group with a win, while Belgium and Iran need victories and favorable results elsewhere to join the Pharaohs in the knockout round.
Norway is apparently playing their B team. I dunno about that one. Assuming they wouldn’t win anyway and are ok with 2nd.
Looking at the bracket 2nd gets them Ivory coast and also in a section w/ Brazil instead of Germany. So I guess I understand it a bit.
A lot of people wearing France clothing in town today, I don’t think I’ve seen Norway yet.
Robbing us of Mbappé/Haaland should be a violation of international law.
The monster is prowling near Norway’s goal…
france is on the attack from the first second.
and france scores 1-0 now.
Norway have made 10 changes for this game - it’s basically their second team. Very disappointing. This game is another casualty of FIFA’s group stage rules.
Yeah, that’s weak. They probably don’t mind not becoming group winner, what with Germany lurking in the round of 16? France doesn’t faze this, they’ll take any opponent.
Eh, they’d finish 2nd even if GD was the first tiebreaker. The difference is they seem to favor the 2nd place path which is a situation that absolutely could arise in the old 32 team format.
another goal for france.
2-0
And Norway pulls one back, 2-1.
will they sing sweet caroline at the hydration break?
Might be interesting to see the teams they finish with. Norway may bring on their stars to keep them match fit, France will sub off some of theirs. Mind you, France doesn’t have much of a drop off in quality.
I’ve read an interesting article today in my local rag (yes, I’m an old fart who stills reads newspapers) about the fact that 99 players in the current WC have been born in France and could have been originally eligible for their team. These are four complete squads, and of course the very best of them actually play for France.
dembele is having quite the game.
3-1
Dembele wants an entry in the Monstrous Manual too, it seems.
Norway should maybe stop letting him shoot from the top of the box uncontested?
He’s 2x UCL reigning champ and the reigning ballon d’or winner.
I’ll forever be annoyed he didn’t care at Barca and for missing a complete sitter in the first leg of the 2019 UCL round against Liverpool, but he’s a hell of a player.
As I reflected on further up thread, 59 players in the tournament were born in Paris alone.
Someone made a Google map of every players birthplace:
EDIT: had to make it a link as the embed seems to have broken Discorse