This evening, Monday June 15 at 9 p.m., the World Cup offers us one of the first major events of this edition. Belgium – Egypt has everything you want from a World Cup: high-level teams, a clash of styles and philosophies, cult players and stories that will be remembered for years to come.
All eyes will be on Kevin De Bruyne and Mohamed Salah, two of the best players of the last decade who are nearing the end of their careers and perhaps have one last opportunity to leave their mark on World Cup history.
- Kevin De Bruyne, who turns 35 on June 28, missed much of last season with Napoli due to injury. And when he was able to play, he didn’t really find his best level.
- With the Belgian selection, on the other hand, he seemed to find his full form, both during qualifying for the World Cup, where he scored six goals in six matches, and during the friendly matches played in recent weeks.
- He will once again be Belgium’s playmaker during the competition, the “beacon” of the midfield and the man responsible for performing feats to send his teammates on the path to goal.
Mohamed Salah is celebrating his 33rd birthday today, and this World Cup will be a little different for him. More than a new challenge, it represents above all an opportunity to reconcile with a competition with which he has, until now, had a complicated relationship.
- In 2018, Salah arrived at the World Cup half-injured, after a tackle from Sergio Ramos in the Champions League final, and was unable to prevent Egypt from being eliminated in the group stage. Four years later, in 2022, he missed the competition because his country did not qualify.
- Despite being Egypt’s all-time top scorer and twice winning the African Footballer of the Year award, Salah has never won anything with the national team.
- In the African Cup of Nations, he reached the final twice, and lost each time. He also played once in the match for third place, without succeeding in winning.
Neither De Bruyne nor Salah arrive at the World Cup in the best conditions, but sometimes, the great champions in decline manage to circumvent the limits of their body by refining a more inspired game. This is why we must follow De Bruyne and Salah during this World Cup: who knows if they will not experience a sublime World Cup, like that of Laudrup in 1998 or Zidane in 2006, two champions who, during these editions, offered us their magnificent farewell to football.
The interest aroused by the Iran-New Zealand match, which will be played at 3 a.m. (Paris), will be less linked to football and more to geopolitics.
- The Iranian selection arrived yesterday in the United States for the first time, after having had to, officially for security reasons, move its training camp to Mexico in recent months.
- During the first press conference in Los Angeles, coach Amir Ghalenoei was rather diplomatic and gave a moderate speech: “I hope that football will bring joy and entertainment and that it will bring countries closer together. We’re just happy to be here.”
- Even if, in the introduction, the FIFA delegate had invited the journalists to ask questions concerning “only the match”, the captain of the team, Mehdi Taremi, did not hold back and spoke of the hostile atmosphere he found in America: “I felt the tensions as soon as I arrived, I certainly didn’t have the same wonderful experience as during the last World Cups.”
- Taremi stressed that Iran was not alone in having faced US inhospitality, and that the problem was widespread: “Several countries have had problems with visas and changes to training grounds. Even some referees suffered the consequences,” referring to the case of Somali referee Artan, who was turned away at Miami airport.
Tonight at 3 a.m. (it will be 6 p.m. in Los Angeles), it will be interesting to see in what state of mind Iran will enter the field. Will the Iranian selection pay the price for the tensions linked to the political situation in their country, or will they, on the contrary, find an additional source of motivation?
Some observations and points of interest
- Yesterday, Curaçao lost 7-1 against Germany, thus giving new arguments to those who do not appreciate the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams. Last week, it was UEFA President Aleksander ÄŒeferin who criticized the new format: “We have a huge number of matches that are completely uninteresting.”
- The federations of Cape Verde, Curaçao, Uzbekistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire responded to these statements with a joint statement: “Football does not belong to a restricted group of nations. Its strength comes from its universality […] For many countries, participation in the World Cup is not just a sporting goal. It’s a moment that inspires a generation, accelerates the development of football and creates memories that last a lifetime. Every match has meaning for millions of people around the world.”
Are European tourists falling in love with rural America?
- That’s what it would seem, judging by the amount of enthusiastic posts that have flourished on social media since the start of the World Cup.
- Tourists who travel around the country by car (and who have no visa problems) discover the peculiarities of deep America and its eating habits – the fast food restaurants open late, the abundance of portions, the gas stations lost in the countryside that serve food and drinks at one o’clock in the morning, the country music on the radio – and they seem enchanted.
- Amid so much bad news about the inhospitality of the main host country, at least some in the United States are having fun.
To allow players to hydrate during matches, two mandatory breaks are provided at the 22nd minute of each half during this World Cup.
- For many commentators and supporters, these pauses are too long and interrupt the emotional and tactical moment of the matches, effectively transforming a match of two halves into a match of four halves, “distorting” football.
- The main criticisms relate to the fact that these breaks are also observed when they would not be necessary (when matches take place in air-conditioned stadiums where the temperature is ideal, for example) and that there seems to be a primarily commercial reason behind this: the breaks create additional advertising slots for television channels.
- In short, is this yet another ultra-liberal reversal of Infantino’s FIFA? Suspicion was especially strengthened after the United States-Paraguay match, when the fourth referee was filmed taking a look at his tablet before giving the green light to resume play, as if he was waiting for the commercials to end.
