Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The World Cup has started with a bang, with spectacular goals, controversial decisions and unconvincing performances available in spades.
Surprisingly, considering their poor form in recent friendlies and their crippling injury problems amongst the defence, one of the most impressive performances so far has come from Russia.
Granted, their 5-0 hammering of Saudi Arabia was as much due to the dreadful performance of our neighbours across the causeway as it was the tournament hosts. However, they admirably dealt with the pressure of playing in their own nation under the watchful eyes of President Vladimir Putin and other footballing royalty, not to mention the billions around the world.
The tournament truly sparked to life in the heavyweight clash between Spain and Portugal, and if there’s a finer game in this tournament I’ll eat my hat! Cristiano Ronaldo once again proved himself as the best player to have ever graced this planet with a scintillating hat trick, including a late trademark free kick to rescue a point.
Portugal may be the team which relies on one player more than any other (except perhaps Egypt, who fell 1-0 to Uruguay after star man Mo Salah was left on the bench), but when he’s that good, they may be able to go all the way.
The same adulations can’t be lavished on his great rival, Lionel Messi, who put in a dreadful performance and missed a penalty after Argentina were held to a 1-1 draw by titans of world football, Iceland. Seeing the Argies in tears brings joy to any Englishman, and coupled with Messi being put firmly in Ronaldo’s shadow, this was a glorious game to savour.
France barely scrambled over the line against a resolute Australian side, with a dodgy penalty and a huge deflection late on giving them a 2-1 victory. I thought the point of VAR was to award penalties and red cards when the referee had missed them, but apparently I missed that memo and it is there to award penalties for good tackles! I’ve never been a fan of video technology for numerous reasons, and incidents like this reconfirms it.
As mentioned in last week’s Whisperer column, I’m on a hot streak of cursing numerous teams and individuals with my predictions.
This week, I’m glad to report it is continuing with aplomb as my tip for the title, Germany, suffered a shock 1-0 defeat to Mexico in their opener.
Even Brazil, who showed plenty of attacking verve at the start of their game against Switzerland, had to settle for a disappointing 1-1 draw.
As for Week Two, there are no fixtures that immediately jump out, but it will be interesting to see how the big hitters fare in their second game.
Germany in particular need a win against a tricky and experienced Sweden side, whilst Argentina have a very difficult fixture against Croatia.
Saudi Arabia v Egypt has plenty of local interest, whilst Poland v Colombia is a battle between two dark horses.
