So, day seven is in full swing, with Paul Doyle guiding you through part I before handing over the baton to Barry Glendenning for Uruguay v Saudi Arabia, followed by Spain v Iran, with Jacob Steinberg tonight. Thanks for your company. Bye!
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England caption competition: “Southgate brushes off suggestions that the squad has too many show ponies,” volunteers David Nicholas. Any more for any more?
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For all of the buildup to Portugal v Morocco, join Paul Doyle:
Some essential half-time lunchtime viewing:
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South Korea are among those training, as well as Mexico and Peru:
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Never mind the World Cup, Rangers will begin their adventure under Steven Gerrard in Macedonia, against FK Shkupi in the Europa League first qualifying round. Dundalk, meanwhile, will play Levadia Tallinn, Shamrock Rovers v AIK, and Derry City v Dinamo Minsk. Ties will be played on 12 July and19 July. Burnley are in the draw for the second qualifying round which follows.
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Transfer nugget: Arsenal appear to be edging closer to the signing of Lucas Torreira. The club have already agreed a £26.4m (€30m) deal to sign the Sampdoria midfielder and Arsenal were discussing personal terms with the Uruguayan’s representatives in Milan last Tuesday. Last night, the Serie A side’s president Massimo Ferrero suggested Unai Emery’s third summer signing was a done deal. “Torreira has left for €30m,” he said, speaking to Sportitalia. “I bought him from Pescara when no one believed. We bet and we won, paying just €3m. The money that comes in is used to keep the club going.” The 22-year-old, primed to replace the departing Jack Wilshere, was a late substitute in Uruguay’s 1-0 win over Egypt and could feature against Saudi Arabia today, kick-off 4pm (BST).
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This is one of those great stories that will live with them forever:
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England riding luminous unicorns: “Can we have a caption competition for that amazing shot of the players on the inflatables?” politely asks Gary Smith. And that seems like a ruddy good, very sensible idea. “Here’s my starter for 10 ... Brexiters finally find the promised land.” Any more for any more?
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Mo Salah’s first appearance at a World Cup could well prove his last, unless Egypt qualify for Qatar 2022 of course. The Liverpool forward’s late penalty was merely a consolation in a damning defeat to the hosts. His coach, Héctor Cúper lamented that Salah had not been in a position to be more influential in the past few weeks. “I would have liked him to have been present at the training camp with everybody else,” he said. “We didn’t have him against Uruguay. We did here [against Russia]. But it wasn’t enough.” Was he 100% fit? “I was told the player was feeling good. He couldn’t prepare with us in all the sessions, trained alone, so perhaps his total physical ability was slightly reduced. But I was convinced he was at optimal level.”
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From the man bun to the middle parting, and Ronaldo’s island:
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The streets of Ekaterinburg were delirious last night, with locals soaking up the delight of Russia’s two wins, with the knockout stages in sight. The coach, Stanislav Cherchesov, has insisted that Russia’s start to the tournament is “no accident”. The 54-year-old added: “We have learned from our mistakes that did not allow us to be more successful in the past and we are very happy that we have two wins and very happy that we are giving this joy to our supporters.”
Transfer news: West Ham United have snapped up the Poland goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski from Swansea City for around £7m, on a three-year deal. That’s West Ham’s second signing in less than 24 hours after the £22m arrival of Issa Diop from Toulouse. “I’m really happy to be joining at such an exciting time,” Fabianski, an understudy to another former Arsenal keeper, Wojciech Szczesny, in Russia for his country this summer, says. “I can’t wait to start this new chapter of my career.”
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Neymar hobbled out of Brazil training on Tuesday, and after stumbling to a draw against Switzerland, Phillipe Coutinho knows victory is a necessity against Costa Rica. “We will treat the game like it’s the final game,” the Barcelona and former Liverpool forward said. “We are aware we have no more room for error.”
How does he do it? Even in the ice bath during an excruciating interview, Harry Kane, the England captain, shows enormous composure. “Every game’s going to be tough,” he says, dipping into cliche. “Panama are going to be fighting to stay in the competition but we feel if we play well like we did, and hopefully we’ll be a bit more clinical and we’ll get the job done. We’ve seen in this tournament some of the big boys not winning their first game and it’s massive that we got the win.”
Fresh from that humbling to Mexico, Germany are out in full force in Sochi this morning – all 23 players, including Jonas Hector after illness, are training. “From now on, every game is like a final,” Manuel Neuer, the captain seemingly taking one for the team, says. “We didn’t have the right body language out on the pitch and we cannot let that happen again. We are confident that we can do that and we want to prove it against Sweden. There is no rift. We are one team and we all include one another in everything.”
Saudi Arabia are in danger of becoming Russia 2018’s whipping boys. Can their goal difference escape a pounding when they take on Uruguay’s Edinson Cavani and Luis Suárez a little later?
Suárez was busy without finding the net against Egypt in their Group A opener, but head coach Óscar Tabárez insists the Barcelona striker should not be perceived as a robot and he needs sufficient support from his team-mates in order to strike.
Football is something that concerns people and these are not robots who can be programmed to deliver in a certain way. We have to be understanding and supportive in times like this; the footballer is the first person to be unhappy with his performance.
We have to offer them the tools so on bad days they can overcome that. When we give them advice the most important thing is to be serene, cool and calm. We all agree perhaps he didn’t have the best of matches against Egypt but he has so much potential.
In this World Cup we have great strikers with important records. Some of them have scored goals in the opening match. All strikers have positive and negative streaks.
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Cristiano Ronaldo can build upon that stunning hat-trick against Spain on Friday by putting Morocco to the sword at the Luzhniki Stadium this afternoon. It will be a different Ronaldo to this one, a sand sculpture 5,000 miles away in China:
Russia’s smiling face, bugs and wild dogs, Brazil’s old demons, England are not so bad after all, and South America’s peaceful invasion; all things our intrepid reporters have discovered:
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This is a heartwarming read, courtesy of colleague Ed Aarons:
Today is the only complete day off for England’s players and staff. Presumably they may head to nearby St Petersburg, 45 minutes down the road, where many of their friends and families are staying. For Germany, though, it’s business as usual, with training underway shortly in Sochi, their home for the tournament. After a shock defeat to Mexico in their Group F opener, they face Sweden on Saturday.
Another example of the relaxed England camp in Repino ...
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On the subject of Portugal, their coach has been preaching for them to invoke the spirit of that surprise scalp in France two years ago:
We have to be very focused and intense in our play and, if we play like we can do, we will win. We have to play like we did in the European Championship two years ago.
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With Portugal back in action this afternoon, against Morocco, there is a chance for Cristiano Ronaldo to bolster his goals tally, in pursuit of landing the Golden Boot. Here are the – admittedly, very early – standings, with Diego Costa, Harry Kane and Romelu Lukaku of course also on two goals apiece:
Another blockbuster day of football is in store, then. Plenty going on today; three games, with Uruguay, Spain and Portugal in action. In terms of England, the headline news is of course that Dele Alli is unlikely to be risked against Panama on Sunday and therefore Ruben Loftus-Cheek will assume his place:
And with that, I’ll hand over to Ben, who will see this one through until kick off in the Portugal v Morocco game. Thanks for your company, as always.
The question on many lips now is: why pay the subscription fee in the first place? Still a lot more to come on this, you feel.
Back to the football, and Jonathan Wilson is in Nizhny Novogorod, where he’s going to watch the Uruguay-Saudi Arabia match later. He reports on Óscar Tabárez, the Uruguay manager who is unable to walk unaided because of neuropathy but who has overseen a major change in ethos of the national team.
For those outside of Australia, this is a big deal. Optus, the nation’s second biggest telco, was the only place fans could watch all 64 games live (if you had an Optus mobile subscription or paid $15 for the streaming service) but technical problems during the first round have left fans extremely unhappy. Having somewhat overestimated their technical prowess and underestimated Australian fans’ interest in the tournament, Optus has now handed rights for the remainder of the group stage to the free-to-air broadcaster SBS, with whom they will simulcast the next two rounds of games. And considering SBS had rights to show live games from the quarter-finals onwards, that’ pretty much the entire tournament back on free TV. You can almost hear the champagne corks popping.
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Breaking news from Australia: SBS will broadcast all World Cup games live and free until the end of the group stage. More to come on this one.
This makes for interesting reading from Ben Fisher, who incidentally will be taking over the reins on the blog in about half an hour. Here, he names and shames the worst World Cup teams of all time. Hello Zaire ‘74!
So, what of England, after their encouraging start to the tournament? Well, apart from Gareth Southgate emerging as a style icon (yes, really) and Marcus Rashford buying into the We Can Win It fervour, it has become clear that the likes of Raheem Sterling, Delle Alli and Jesse Lingard must hone their eye for goal if England are indeed to reach the latter stages of this tournament. Here’s the latest from Daniel Taylor:
The word uhvat refers to a long-handled wooden utensil used to slide food in and out of a pechka, a wood-fired oven found in many Russian houses until the late 19th century.
No, I haven’t become an overnight expert in Russia culture and history. Instead it’s Katrina Kollegaeva on a restaurant on the same name that is leading the resurgence in traditional Slavic cooking and might provide something a bit different for World Cup fans looking for a bite to eat in Moscow.
In case you missed this, Neymar’s ankle has become the new Salah’s shoulder. The Brazilian limped out of training on Tuesday, but while Salah’s injury kept him out of Egypt’s opener, this knock isn’t considered too serious and Neymar should return to training later today in readiness for the Costa Rica game later in the week.
World Cup fans in Australia who have been left frustrated by Optus Sport’s streaming service will find out this afternoon what’s going to happen in the immediate future, with the 48-hour deal with SBS now expired. An announcement will by made at 4pm AEST. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile: “Are we to believe that the Guardian style guide is of the permissive persuasion regarding nautical variants of “toeing the line”? Rainslee wins.
“I’m expecting big things from today,” emails Jakob Mathiszig-Lee. “These should all be one sided goal fests, I’m predicting at least 10 today.” More from CR7 and Diego Costa? Will Suárez get in on the act? The Portugal coach, Fernando Santos, is hoping for his entire team to up their game, which certainly sounds ominous for Morocco.
“If the Guardian does not employ subeditors, how about a simple spellcheck? It’s FIFA, not Fifa!” storms Jaguarex007 below the line. Look, I’m just towing the party line. This, from the Guardian’s style guide:
Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters (an initialism): BBC, CEO, US, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, Unicef, unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo, pin number and sim card. Note that pdf and plc are lowercase.
Kieran Pender is our man in Kazan with the Australian national team. He’s en route to Samara today ahead of the Socceroos’ clash with Denmark and sent us this update:
Australia’s home in Russia, the training centre of Russian ice hockey club Ak Bars Kazan (“The Snow Leopards”), provides two reasons for inspiration. At a sporting level, confidence pervades the facility after Ak Bars won the Gagarin Cup, the local equivalent of NHL’s Stanley Cup, in April. At a logistical level, being based in Kazan has proved fortuitous for Australia. During the group stage, the team will travel the least of Group C sides – a tolerable 3,640 kilometres. Their opponents on Thursday, Denmark, have the longest travel time with over 7,370 kilometres to cover in total from their based on the Black Sea coast near Crimea. Football Federation Australia may be a common target for fan ire, but you can’t criticise their preparation: Australia had selected Kazan as a base more than a year ago, and had staff on the ground here at the end of the 2017 Confederations Cup undertaking checks. Given how precarious Australia’s qualification process was – the Socceroos were the penultimate team to secure participation at the World Cup – you have to wonder what the cancellation policy was on a large sporting facility...
Harry Kane said before the tournament began that he felt England could win the whole thing (to be fair, what else could he say when asked the question?), and now he’s setting his own personal sights high. “To be the best player in the world you have to aim high – you can’t aim low – so just put no limits on yourself,” said the England captain and two-goal hero, who has his eye on the Golden Boot.
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That Japanese fan story is indeed true, and here’s the proof:
Japanese fans clean up stadium after Columbia loses 1-2 to Japan in World Cup 2018 https://t.co/4MsPCdCsaD pic.twitter.com/vx9eAXQ2AC
— Mothership.sg (@MothershipSG) June 19, 2018
I sometimes wonder what I was doing back when I was 16. Discovering the delights of the pub perhaps. Playing basketball. Being at school. Maybe some other more exciting stuff that wouldn’t be appropriate for dissemination here. Certainly not leaving one top flight football club for another, for a fee of 20m euros. Yet that’s what French youngster Willem Geubbels, the absolute baby-faced legend, has done. Monaco have poached the 16-year-old from Lyon after he became the first player born in the 21st century to play in Ligue 1 last season.
The pod have got together again to discuss day five and it’s once again recommended listening. Especially for the brilliant anecdote about the Japanese fans, and the reaction of their Colombian counterparts. Huge if true.
Mikkel Beck, the journeyman striker with the lovely blond hair who thrilled crowds in Middlesbrough and Köln, via Derby and Aalborg among others, is now a player agent. And he counts two Australians as his clients, so is in a pretty good position to talk about the upcoming game between his home nation, Denmark, and the Socceroos. John Davidson had a chat with him earlier in the week.
“World Cup 2018: day six buildup as Portugal and Spain return to action! Please go easy on the exclamation marks. It’s too early,” writes Mgleadow below the line. It’s past 2pm in Sydney, a fair time to be enthusiastic about football, I feel!
One other England-related yarn from those 10 things, courtesy of Daniel Taylor: “The biggest danger in Repino seems to be the wild dogs that roam in the woodlands. One member of the media entourage, cycling inland from England’s base, encountered a pack of them and was pursued for two miles before reaching safety.”
What have we learned so far over the past five days? Apart from the fact that five days at a major football tournament go very, very quickly. Here are 10 things we’ve become wise to, including the fact that England have “vim” and “verve”.
Preamble
It’s almost as if Fifa’s world rankings mean nothing. Russia, the desperate host nation whom Fifa deem to be the world’s 70th best side, are now pretty much nailed on to go on and emulate Uruguay, Italy, England, (West) Germany, Argentina and France by winning their home World Cup. Having knocked off Egypt to improve their record this tournament to a record of played two, won two, scored about 57, they have become the first team to at least plant one foot in the last 16 – most likely both – and against all expectation. It’s great news for subscribers of the theory that for a World Cup to be successful, you need the host nation to progress. The repercussions, with football-mad nation Qatar hosting in four years’ time, could be wide-reaching. Or not.
Anyway, despite Mo Salah’s appearance and goal, Egypt now appear dead and buried, but at least Senegal raised African spirits with a rousing win over Poland on day five, while Japan kept up Asia’s end with a surprise victory over 10-man Colombia. Plenty from all three games to dissect over the next few hours.
That’s all before the second round of matches continues with three more contests, including the return of Cristiano Ronaldo’s thighs, Luis Suarez’s Uruguay and 2010 world champions Spain. This blog is scheduled to run up until the first kick-off of the day, at which point we’ll have individual efforts like this:
1pm BST/3pm MSK/10pm AEST: Portugal v Morocco
4pm BST/6pm MSK/1am Thursday AEST: Uruguay v Saudi Arabia
7pm BST/9pm MSK/4am Thursday AEST: Iran v Spain
Throughout the course of the day/evening/whatever it is where you are, feel free to get in touch on email (mike.hytner@theguardian.com) or Twitter (@mike_hytner) or below the line. Meanwhile, you could do worse than sign up for the World Cup Fiver:
