BfB

Axis

Cape Verde were great fun against Spain running the kind of rear guard action which impresses when it is done to someone else’s team but is considered a failing when it happens to a more fancied team. Both the Spanish and the Uruguiyans were unimpressive in opening games.

Spain’s big worry – that they have no forward to finishing off what the two impressive wingers create resurfaced as they ended up drawing a blank and when Cabo Verde headed towards goal from a corner in injury time the world prepared to tilt on its axis, footbally speaking.

The Spanish keeper gathered though and the game finished goalless, with Uruguay misfiring against Saudi Arabia to a second draw in the group. Marcello Bielsa’s methods do not seem ready to produce something special at a nation in Uruguay which are capable of being special and the upcoming parting of the ways is probably best for both.

Impressive

Scotland’s win over Haiti impressed me more than most. The Scots seem to have a tough core and can attack with pace, which is often all a team needs to do, and the win over the Caribbean side sets them up for two games against Brazil, who are supposed to be good, and Morocco, who are good.

Those teams, who drew one all in a game which threatened to whelm but went under that, seemed happy enough to take a point each in their encounter assuming they would pick up another six. In a theme for this first round Morocco will probably not want to admit that they probably should have beaten Brazil, but they should.

Much of the noise around Scotland was that they should have put more past Haiti, which is a big assumption, but perhaps they would be better to focus on using that solid centre and pace on the break to take something from one of the two favoured teams in this group.

Cultures

Mexico got the World Cup started with a rollocking 2-0 win over South Africa which had a set of red cards that seemed to boggle the mind. Surely games with three red cards should feel a little more like someone had done something wrong in them. South Africa, 90 minutes into the tournament, look ready for home.

South Korea trundled to an opening win over Czechia. It is worth looking at the Koreans as an impressive footballing force. As with Japan, the Koreans have a mix of long term planning and determination which has created strong football cultures, but they struggle to progress in tournaments like this.

So it seems silly to call them a Dark Horse, because their abilities are well known, so perhaps we shall call them horses and be done with that.

Recovery

Sweden’s forwards enjoyed a fine day against Tunisia with Alexander Isak recovering from a season marring injury to score one, and Viktor Gyökeres recovering from having won the league with Arsenal which seemed to mar his career.

Gyökeres is a useful player but seems to pale when compared to some fantasy forward that Arsenal could sign who would never miss, always hold the ball, and be generally impressive in the way that Isak was not. Yasin Ayari scored two goals as the Swedes won 5-1 and former Farsley based manager Graham Potter must reflect one how his embarrassment of riches up front is a shelf of shame for the Premier League. Watch him get a performance out of Anthony Elanga next game.

Sweden’s goals should probably see them through despite games against Japan and The Netherlands to come.

Tedious

Japan drew after a disappointing first game against a Netherlands side with whom they negotiated a 2-2 draw. Japan seemed on the whole happy with the point that leaves both them and a team I wanted to call Tedious Orange well placed to progress, but the Samurai Blue lacked the pace from midfield that has characterised their best sides.

The Dutch, it turned out, were good enough without suggesting they have any hidden talents. Virgil Van Dyke rages against the dying of the light impressively. His Liverpool accomplice Mohammed Salah, rather than raging, moved into a Number Ten role against the low countries other representative in Belgium.

Salah’s Egypt will be regretful that they did not capitalise on a first half display which seemed to leave Belgium gasping for air, but Romelu Lukaku managed to somehow score if not with his first touch, then his first breath, as the North Africans decided to put the ball in their own net rather than allow him to score.

Complex

In the same space as Belgium and Egypt, New Zealand seemed caught in a blizzard of things when they played a 2-2 draw with Iran. The Asian side are a politically complex entity and any organisation run with integrity would not have allowed this situation to arise.

“Football is for everyone” FIFA insist, but so often that is better understood as being the governing body opting not to take a stand on the human rights issues it pays a lot of lip service to. The American-Iranians in the heat of the summer booed the anthem in what seemed like a token protest.

Someone is rehabilitating their reputation here, as is often the case in the nexus between football and politics, but while football is for everyone other rights are not, at least in the world of FIFA. The act of football support humanises the idea of people from Iran, or Iraq who also seem like unwelcome guests in the USA, which runs counter to the desire to paint those people as without humanity.

Alititide

Switzerland, Canada, Qatar, Bosnia,and Herzegovina seem to be one team too many. They shared goals equally on day one with the Swiss looking like they should have done better against Qatar, who scored late. The group has yet to come to life.

Fully alive were Germany, putting in Seven goals to one against Curacao while Cote d’Ivoire scored a late winner against an Ecuador side who seemed both impressive and out of their depth at the same time. Their home record achieved at altitude, seems to suggest themselves as a better team than they are but when at ground level they are impressive, just not imperious.

Cote d’Ivoire though looked an interesting team able to withstand a lot of action against them, while being enterprising going forward. The match up between Cote d’Ivoire and Germany might tell us a lot about both teams.

Spin

We have been told too much about the United States of America, specifically by Spin Doctor wannabe Alexi Lalas who is convinced that Christian Pulisic is a World Class footballer despite the library of evidence suggesting he is just, you know, pretty good. And he was pretty good against Paragaury when the USA beat them 4-1.

It was impressive but less so than Australia’s 2-0 victory over Turkiye which saw the team that is sort of in Asia beat the other team that is sort of in Asia despite being out played, but having contained and occasionally rode their luck and took the chances when they came.

Nestory Irankunda, the Watford player, also did not look like he might be one of the top ten players in the world but without a Lalas to boost him, we can all just be impressed and watch this group as Turkiye come from behind and the USA and Australia battle for second.

Scandinavians

Iraq play Erling Haaland seemingly, and ten other random men from Norway. There is much gnashing of teeth about how many goals Haaland will get, and how many world cups he will play in, seemingly ignoring the infrequency of the Scandinavians getting to this biggest stage, and for that matter the frequency of very good players not registering much in terms of World Cup performance. Neymar Jnr is around here somewhere.

Still Haarland scored a fine goal in the first half, sliding onto the end of a low cross to become the first person born in Leeds to score at a World Cup since Stuart McCall, but not David Batty, who missed his penalty, but lets forget that.

Iraq took some pride, but Norway won the points with a 4-1 scoreline, although they might worry that if a team as obviously not excellent as Iraq can get enough chances to both equalise and feel like they should have equalised again then France might not have much to worry about.

Brighten

There is a joy to watching Kylian Mbappé not perform which brightened up the first half of France against Senegal. Mbappé is a good player but one can’t help but conclude he is not as good as the people who would have it that he should be put on the same pedestal as Messi and Ronaldo should not have been put on.

The day after Spain and Cabo Verde are matched up football goes back to the belief that individual talent is more than team cohesion as if the Africa Island’s result were as far back as North Korea or the era of Ferenc Puskás.

Still, Mbappé was the difference after Michael Olise put a beautiful through ball to him. In elevating Mbappé football axiomatically ignores the likes of Olise, which is an unbalanced way to assess the qualities of this French side, which are many. Mbappé’s wattage should not outshine Bradley Barcola, who scored to give France a 3-1 win that was finished by a long ranger from Mbappé.

I am convinced Senegal have more to say in this tournament, and France are both good and playing well.

Silver

Argentina navigated Algeria with only a little curiosity, Lionel Messi scoring in the first half with a move the team seems set up to create, and him to finish. This is luxury football. A player who plays with his mind and his mind is sharp. Algeria field Luca – son of Zidane – Zidane in goal and there is nothing he can do about the three goals which Messi scores.

This is Messi’s first World Cup hattrick, but the genius of Messi is not in his individual talent but in how that talent meshes with the players around him. Messi is football’s van Gogh turning the chaos of football into something achingly beautiful. To compare him to the selfish grotesque of Christiano Ronaldo is to misunderstand what the brilliance of Messi is.

What will Lionel Messi do when he stops playing football? What will we do with only highlights of goals which somehow miss the point of what makes Messi, Messi?

Austria beat Jordan 3-1 and hardly anyone seems to notice, but perhaps Austria are worth paying some attention to. Algeria are their competition to progress but the progress Ralf Rangnick has made with the side seems to have taken them a little above the rank and file. Suggesting they may be the new Switzerland seems to define damning with faint praise, but it fits.

Broken

On the other side of town Christiano Ronaldo and Portugal faced off against a DR Congo side who struggled to show an interest in the ball while the Europeans took an early lead but there was something fundamentally broken in Roberto Martinez’s side and it was not hard to see what it was with another generation of talent forced to play the ball through an aging forward in Ronaldo.

That Christiano Ronaldo plays in the centre of the attacking line, and does not move, leaves that line incapable of functioning as it should so the DR Congo backline was never pushed back, leaving no space for Portugal’s midfielders to play the ball, so there is just an embarrassing jam. Yohan Wissa equalised for DR Congo and one is left to wonder how high the financial benefits of being the team with CR7 must be to outweigh the football difficulties.

Difficulties which could be addressed. Martinez could put Christiano Ronaldo behind another forward, he could have him as a floating Number Ten, but for whatever reason that does not happen.

Far more effective in the group were Colombia who reminded the world about Luis Diaz who would like to be considered amongst the better strikers in the world and staked his claim to be that in a good performance against an excellent Uzbekistan team who had they had the fortune to have draw First Game Portgual probably would have ended with a point. Colombia ended 3-1 but with a bar rattling after a stinging drive in injury timre which said what could have been for the Uzbeks.

Not Expanding

Panama might wonder if they missed a chance against Ghana who scored deep into injury time to win a borderline unwatchable game of football between the two grindhouses of Group L. Neither side were especially good and both gave an excellent advertisement for not expanding the competition.

Still Ghana’s late goal might give them some of the belief they seemed to be lacking, and the confidence, while Panama can boast at least some defensive structure with one imagines Croatia will find grizzly in their next encounter.

Croatia lost 4-2 to England.