Belgium claimed top spot in Group G after defeating England 1-0 Thursday thanks to Adnan Januzaj’s beautiful 51st-minute curler. Michy Batshuayi celebrated the goal by thunder punting the ball off the post and back into his own face.
You know in FIFA when you strike the perfect ball and the goalkeeper really shouldn’t even have time to react but instinctively leaps sideways and backwards and claws out your shot with a preposterous bit of animation that makes your blood curl? Well that just happened to Poland’s Kamil Grosicki but in real life.
The Polish attacker really should’ve scored with this perfectly placed header, but Japan’s Eiji Kawashima sprinted across his goal-line, went full extension and pawed it out with a monstrous right claw. This is what’s referred to as slamming the door shut.
Costa Rica lost two tough matches to start the 2018 World Cup. The 2014 quarterfinalist was a few moments away from earning two draws but instead took two losses. But the Switzerland vs Costa Rica match finished 2-2, giving Los Ticos a deserved point from their stay in Russia, even if it came thanks to an odd own goal.
Mexico’s deserved 3-0 spanking at the hands of an exceptional Sweden side doesn’t matter. El Tri’s through to the Round of 16 thanks to one of the greatest upsets in the history of the World Cup. The defending champions are out, and they’ll long have nightmares of South Korea goalkeeper Cho Hyun-woo, who made six saves on the day.
El Tri fans will likely not want to watch the Mexico vs Sweden highlights from Wednesday’s World Cup Group F finale. The 3-0 defeat for the Concacaf side had few redeeming qualities for fans of Mexico. But hey, South Korea stunned Germany and El Tri advanced anyway, so who cares, right?
Mexico started the match out with the right attitude, not sitting back but not pushing too far forward. But that changed in the second half, when Sweden took the lead with three goals in 24 minutes.
The game’s an original drama unlike any other, but for 40 minutes of Argentina versus Nigeria at Saint Petersburg Stadium, this felt like a rerun. There was Javier Mascherano, bloodied, stretching every sinew as the side’s aging lynchpin and guilty of doing too much.
After watching first Lucas Biglia and then Enzo Perez do little except play balls into places where things go to die, it’s looking like Argentina’s riding Ever Banega next to Javier Mascherano from here on out (which still might not be very long whatsoever). Regardless, my God was it nice to see a ball from the Argentina midfield that wasn’t first coated in the feces of a leaky Mascherano anus.
Believe it or not, Cristiano Ronaldo is flesh and bone, just like the rest of us.
Cristiano Ronaldo missed a penalty against Iran and is momentarily trailing behind Harry Kane in the race to win the Golden Boot.
You have to give all the credit to Iran goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand for denying the shot from Ronaldo, one of the world’s most efficient penalty takers.