Gerard Pique was a man of peace and love to start Spain’s match against Iran on Wednesday. He gently helped a little birdie off the pitch before the opening whistle. By the end of the match, Vahid Amiri’s Pique nutmeg left the Spanish defender shaking his head, just happy La Furia Roja escaped with a 1-0 victory over Team Melli.
After a disappointing first match against Iceland, Argentina needs to get a result out of its match with Croatia on Thursda if it wants to keep its hopes of getting out of the group alive. For Croatia, three points would all but seal its ticket to the next stage. This promises to be a huge match, so here is everything you need to know ahead of the big game, plus a Argentina vs Croatia prediction.
The World Cup is finally here, and with each country's individual style, culture and national team also comes their own unique love of national foods of World Cup countries.
Some like it extra hot and spicy, some prefer it mild, others choose rice over potatoes and there are meat-lovers and fish-lovers or even those who prefer shark. Below are the most popular national foods of World Cup countries separated into their World Cup groupings.
Luis Suarez needed this. His haters did not. After a miserable start to the 2018 World Cup in a narrow win over Egypt, the Luis Suarez goal vs Saudi Arabia in another 1-0 victory was just what Uruguay wanted to see from its star man on Tuesday.
To say Suarez had a poor match against Egypt would be a bit of an understatement. He missed clear chances and flopped around with his far-too-common antics.
Mexico's captain Rafa Marquez came on for the final 20 minutes of El Tri's opening match win against Germany and made a few key tackles to preserve his side a vital three points in Group F.
Monday’s match against Tunisia was England’s best performance at a major international tournament for close to a decade. After trying and failing and trying even more desperately and then failing even more stupendously than ever before, the Three Lions finally have an opening game in which they can take great pride.
“Does Messi do that?” Alexi Lalas sneered while looking at the camera during Fox’s halftime coverage of Portugal vs. Morocco. The act in question was a three-yard diving header off a corner from Ronaldo to give Portugal an early lead. (He doesn't; he usely takes the corners or stands at the edge of the box because he's just pushing 5-7.)
But does Messi do this?
Move over Ferenc Puskas, CR7 is No. 2 now. With the Cristiano Ronaldo goal vs Morocco, a powerful header off a corner kick four minutes into the match on Wednesday, the Portuguese star became the second all-time leading goal scorer in the history of men's international soccer.
Ronaldo and Puskas were tied with 84 goals apiece after the former’s hat trick against Spain on Friday. But Ronaldo didn’t wait long on Wednesday against Morocco to break that tie.
The first set of matches at the 2018 World Cup have now been completed. We’ve seen everything from the first use of VAR at the World Cup, monumental upsets and everything in between. Now that the dust has settled, we decided we can absolutely, definitely, 100 percent give you the World Cup predicted winner based off of how the teams performed in their first matches.