Virgil van Dijk might have to get a tear drop tattoo after he obliterated Argentina’s Leandro Paredes on Friday during the Netherlands 4-3 penalty defeat against the South American giants.
Friday’s quarterfinal was an intense and feisty affair as there were several skirmishes and shoving matches throughout the night.
AL RAYYAN, Qatar - Portugal's Football Federation (FPF) have denied media reports that captain Cristiano Ronaldo threatened to leave the national team during the World Cup after coach Fernando Santos dropped him for their last-16 win over Switzerland.
DOHA - Samuel Eto'o, the former Cameroon striker and current president of the country's football federation, was involved in an altercation after Brazil's victory over South Korea on Monday, an American newspaper has reported.
La Opinion, a Spanish-language newspaper based in Los Angeles, posted a video on its Twitter feed in the early hours of Tuesday morning which it said showed Eto'o clashing with a man holding a video camera as he left Doha's Stadium 974.
I feel like England vs. Senegal referee Iván Barton was all of us at home in the 23rd minute of Sunday's Round of 16 match. This was our 52nd match of a 64-game World Cup. We've all experienced a little burnout and grown a little irritable over the last two weeks. We don't have time for this; not now.
So when Senegal came hollering for a penalty on a perceived England handball that didn't exist, the 31-year-old Barton confirmed the call with the VAR and we played on.
AL RAYYAN, Qatar - Uruguay's Luis Suárez refused to apologize to Ghanaians on Thursday for his role 12 years ago in their biggest World Cup setback, arguing it wasn't his handball that denied Ghana a quarterfinal winner but their missed penalty that followed.
A win for Ghana against Uruguay in Friday's final Group H match could avenge their acrimonious defeat by the South Americans in 2010, when Suárez used his hand to block an extra-time winner for Ghana, who missed the resulting spot-kick and lost the penalty shootout that followed.
DOHA - Belgium captain Eden Hazard has denied there is a rift in the squad but admits frank words were exchanged between the players following their surprise 2-0 World Cup Group F loss to Morocco on Sunday.
Hazard was speaking to the media along with experienced goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois on Tuesday after they replaced the players originally scheduled to talk, Yannick Carrasco and Arthur Theate.
Banned from the World Cup after delirious, megalomaniac tyrant Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, Russian soccer has carried on with their local competitions. And the planet got a reminder today after a game between Zenit and Spartak Moscow turned into a massive brawl.
It was so bad that six players were sent off.
Since the draw for the 2022 World Cup occurred in April, the Black Friday USA matchup against England had been circled on the calendar for both sides. With so much history both off the field and on, we arrived at the next chapter thirsty for a fantastic show.
The last time USA and England met in a World Cup, the match ended as a 1-1 draw in 2010 after Clint Dempsey fired home a shot that bounced off Robert Green's hands and rolled behind him into the net.
DOHA - Iran coach Carlos Queiroz lambasted German soccer icon Jürgen Klinsmann for criticizing his team's World Cup conduct, calling his remarks a "disgrace to football" and urging him to quit his FIFA post, as Iran's soccer federation demanded an apology.
In comments as an analyst with broadcaster BBC, 1990 World Cup winner Klinsmann accused Iran of systematic gamesmanship during their stunning 2-0 stoppage-time win over Wales on Friday and said Queiroz's record with other national teams made him the right match for Iran.
Enner Valencia shone in Ecuador's 2-0 victory over Qatar. The striker scored a brace and could have been celebrating a hat trick if VAR hadn't disallowed a header in the game's third minute.