The United States is not in the 2018 World Cup and Costa Rica just showed the world why. No matter how skilled a team is (or isn’t), it is extremely difficult to beat a Concacaf side like Costa Rica, Panama or Honduras. But a stoppage-time Philippe Coutinho goal vs Costa Rica was just enough to get Brazil a vital three points with a 2-0 win and knock Los Ticos out of the tournament on Friday in Russia.
Can you believe we’ve already been going at this for over a week and that it’s already June 21? No? Because you haven’t slept much and your feeling kind of delirious and you have World Cup Powerade commercial-inspired dreams? Oh my god, me too.
As the Argentina vs Croatia highlights show, Lionel Messi and company collapsed against an altogether superior opponent on Thursday in Nizhny Novgorod, 3-0. Spearheaded by the influential play of the sublime Luka Modric, Croatia is through to the Round of 16 while Argentina is on the verge of a shock group stage elimination.
Denmark escaped with a 1-1 draw against a resilient Australia earlier this morning, and the Danish can thank their lucky stars that Australia didn’t convert more of its chances.
The Danish Dynamite opened the game with a bang, as striker Nicolai Jørgensen and star midfielder Christian Eriksen combined in a beautiful pass-and-move play, and Eriksen rocketed a volley past Socceroos keeper Mat Ryan.
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.
No event escalates individuals to the status of national hero or global villain as dramatically as the World Cup. The idolatry that follows success and the stigma that follows failure are woven into the fabric of history, and the repercussions will typically follow footballers for the rest of their lives. Daily, we’ll take a look at who played the role of hero and who played the role of villain at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Russia’s 3-1 win over Egypt at Saint Petersburg Stadium has almost guaranteed the hosts a place in the Round of 16 while Mohamed Salah and the Pharaohs have been all but eliminated from the World Cup. After failing to come off the bench in Egypt’s devastating 1-0 opening defeat to Uruguay, Salah was unable to make his presence felt Tuesday until earning and converting a conciliatory penalty in the 73rd minute.
Every team has now played one match at the World Cup. No team has earned itself more fans after one round of play than the Lions of Teranga after a wild 2-1 win for Senegal vs Poland in Group H of the 2018 World Cup on Tuesday.
Senegal’s only other appearance in the World Cup came in 2002, when the Lions upset defending champion France on the way to a quarterfinals appearance. Senegal looked capable of returning to the quarterfinals after thrilling in its win over Poland, ranked No. 8 in the world.
A massive Mexican contingent of fans at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow (Fox’s Kasey Keller went as far as to say it was 80 percent El Tri fans vs. 20 percent German) was on hand to watch Mexico defeat defending world champions Germany 1-0 thanks to Hirving “Chucky” Lozano’s goal in the 35th minute.
Croatia vs Nigeria was the last match of a long day at the World Cup, one that began at 6 a.m. ET (that’s 4 a.m. for yours truly). We could forgive you if you couldn’t stay awake for the match, which wasn’t quite up to par with the first three — especially if you were following our lead making World Cup cocktails and playing drinking games.