July 7, 2018, Day Twenty-four
Games
In Russia’s 2018 FIFA World Cup, Sweden and England (and later Croatia and Russia) met to decide who would move on to the semifinals. In a tightly contested match that saw both sides produce their type of offensive opportunities, it was England who capitalized on two headers, one off a corner (six-foot-four Harry Maguire, heading over five-foot-ten Emil Forsberg at the 30th) the other off of the run of play (six-foot-two Dele Alli, alone at the far post, at the 58th).
The Swedes had their chances too and yet several great saves by England keeper Jordan Pickford, an unfortunate off sides call that wasn’t, and a few gifts from inside the box that simply went astray in the execution, were all Sweden could muster. In the end the English team did just enough to win 2—0, as they did previously to beat Colombia on penalties and before that Tunisia with Kane’s 90+3 winning goal. England will next meet the golden-generation-done-very-well from Croatia.
Croatia and Russia met in the second quarterfinals match and Luka Modric, Ivan Rakitic and company were too much for Russia as the hosts bowed out in a penalty shootout. The match began with a ridiculous Denis Cheryshev boomer to the upper left ninety of the goal while on the run and in traffic at the 31st minute. But Croatia, who had dominated play until then—that was Russia’s lone shot on target to that moment—simply ramped up their efforts and eight minutes later Andrej Kramaric equalized off a break with Mario Mandzukic going down the left wing and providing a perfect short cross for the headed goal.
The match had been an officiating travesty as the Russians came out overly aggressive and fouled everyone in sight committing 25 fouls in the game. When the Croatians realized their physical well-being was at risk they decided to defend themselves, but the blind eye afforded the Russians was not extended to them and in the match the Croats received four yellows for fouls a number of host players had committed twice over without a card. In the end the total called foul count was 43 with Russia getting one yellow, at the 79th minute.
Croatia’s Damagoj Vida headed his team ahead in added time, at the 100th minute, and Mario Fernandes headed Russia even at the 115th. Penalties ensued when no other score took place and Croatia won (2-2) 4—3. The English team must be licking their chops as the Croats had to play two back-to-back penalty shootout games after playing 120+ minutes both games. Nevertheless, given their respective quality the Croats should be considered the favorites to win their semifinals match.
Papa’s Semifinals Predictions— Croatia over England and France over Belgium.
Events
Futbol Papa’s World Cup 2018 Diary today chronicled that the USA media is still flogging Neymar over his antics (you know when his team was actually in the competition) without giving proper attention to the fact that he was the most fouled player in the entire competition and that the English-speaking media and FIFA itself showed its bias against Brazil in ignoring the biased officiating their team suffered in the match against Belgium.
Listen to FS1 (Fox Soccer channel)’s Rob Stone’s attempt to engage his round table of commentators in a unanimous critique of Neymar in one of Fox’s between-match segments only to have the other members of the group shoot him down. Then watch his crestfallen reaction when he could not pile on.
News
Futbol Papa’s World Cup 2018 Diary found that the entire staff of Fox TV, the US English-language carriers of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, assigned to work the quarterfinals match between Russia and Croatia were unanimously rooting for the hosts to win. Here are a few verbatim quotes from today’s broadcast:
“We are in added time. What does Russia need to do now?” No mention of their opposition.
“It would be a shame to lose the energy of the Russian fans should their team lose.” No mention of how much they would miss the Croatian fans should their team lose.
With the game tied right after Fernandes’ header commentator and play-by-play announcers exchanged ideas about “The Croatian team seems back in control now. How can Russia marshal this toward penalties?” No effort was made to thereafter comment on what Croatia could do to win it before penalties.
The joy of the saves or misses during the penalty shoot-out made one think it was a Russian broadcast team giving us their take on the match. No conspiracy suggested here, just a statement of facts.
Fouls
With VAR being so poorly used in its inaugural World Cup Papa will keep track of the manner in which infractions and unsportsmanlike acts decide games throughout the cup. The nonexistent offsides called against Sweden, from an officiating team that mostly got it all right, was a shame in a game where a single goal might have turned the match around. Don’t know how much help Sandro Meira Ricci was assigned to provide the hosts in the Russia-Croatia match, but his judgement calls were universally one sided.
Goals
Futbol Papa’s World Cup 2018 Diary will continue to keep tabs on the tournament’s scorers to see if the initial goal scoring tendency continues, as so far, of the 146 goals actually scored in the cup (11 more have been own goals for a total of 157 tallies) 25% (37) have been converted by La Liga players while 23% (33) have been scored by Premiership stars. The remaining 52% have been scored by all other leagues combined.
Coming Up
On Tuesday, July 10th, at 2:00 PM EST France and Belgium will play in St. Petersburg and on Wednesday, July 11th, England and Croatia will meet at 2:00 PM EST in Moscow.
Futbol Papa’s World Cup 2018 Diary Predictions
Fifty-eight games played. 63% correct calls
Right calls–(37)—Correctly called 30 group stage matches and seven knockout round matches.
Papa made an “push (no call)” on the Iceland-Nigeria game, but called it for Iceland after the cup began, so this prediction is not credited as right or wrong (1).
Wrong calls–(22)—Incorrectly called 17 group stage matches and five knockout round matches.
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