Calculating the value of Liverpool’s attacking duo is impossible, but they are certainly better together than apartNaturally, the lasers lent the scene a certain pathos. As Mohamed Salah stepped up to take Egypt’s first penalty against Senegal on Tuesday night, the swarm of green laser beams dancing across his face were a reminder of football’s capacity to render even its greats temporarily powerless. Here was one of the biggest stars in the world’s biggest sport. But he couldn’t make his team win. He couldn’t get his country to a World Cup. And now he didn’t even have the use of his own eyes.“I was luckier,” Sadio Mané said afterwards. This was his second consecutive triumph over his Liverpool teammate, Senegal’s...
Robert Page picks an attacking lineup for Wales’s win or bust World Cup playoff and his leading man dazzles on centre stageWith 23 minutes gone there was a moment of uproar inside the Cardiff City Stadium as Harry Wilson was blocked off outside the Austria penalty area; uproar that gave way almost immediately as Szymon Marciniak blew his whistle for the free-kick.Suddenly the air was alive with a weird kind of buzz, like the moment in a storm just before the lightning bolt hits and things start to lift: the hairs on your arms, seats flipped up, people in the stands starting to raise their hands above their heads. Gareth Bale paced it out and waited, charging the moment a...
Usual suspects are dominating a campaign that lacks tension and leaves them ill-prepared for tests that await in QatarWorld Cup qualification is getting into gear everywhere, with new Canadian heroes, potentially dramatic play-offs in Europe and Africa and a tight battle for the remaining South American slots. In Asia, however, qualification has been dull – again. Even at the halfway point of this final group stage, it was clear that the four automatic places were going to be shared among the same old names of Iran, South Korea, Australia, Japan and Saudi Arabia. Since Australia joined Asia in 2006, only North Korea in 2010 have broken into that magic circle.That it has been too easy for these regional powerhouses is...
There are plenty of one-sided qualifiers but within them lies a reminder that football does not exist to serve the wealthyIt was the eighth goal that felt most primitive of all. All night long at the Parc des Princes, France had been flaying Kazakhstan with a baying relish that seemed to skirt the boundary between sport and ritual.Three minutes from time, with the score 7-0 and France’s passage to the World Cup long since secured, Kylian Mbappé chased after Moussa Diaby’s through pass with the Kazakh centre-half Nuraly Alip also in pursuit. Continue reading...
The excellence of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe was the best thing about a farcically easy night in San MarinoIn defence of weird, silly games of football. How to spin this? With Qatar 2022 qualification ON THE LINE in San Marino Harry Kane produced a sensational first‑half four‑goal blitz. Hmm. Perhaps not. With Qatar 2022 qualification not – OK, fine – realistically on the line England sent out a stunning message with a clinical show of penalty-taking, goal-prodding and lunge‑hurdling. No. Maybe not that, either.There is on the face of it no defence for this game of attack versus no-defence, this 10-0 mauling, this exercise in mild sporting absurdity. Watching England shuttle the ball around beneath the sallow green...