Canada lose a star, get angry

Most of the football at this World Cup has been really fun. Even the “bad” games have been pretty enjoyable. So it sucks that the thing we’ll remember about this day at the World Cup is a guy getting his leg broken. It was by far the most impactful and consequential event in an otherwise unremarkable slate of games.

Czechia and South Africa probably eliminated each other

Czechia and South Africa faced off with a ton on the line. Given their upcoming opponents in matchweek 3 (Mexico for Czechia, South Korea for South Africa), it was of massive importance for one of these sides to win and have a realistic chance at progressing to the knockout stage.

It was Czechia who opened the scoring very early on, and unsurprisingly, it came from a set piece. Taking advantage of there being no offside from a throw-in, Adam Hložek chased towards the ball in behind on the right flank and played an inviting long range cut-back towards the penalty arc. Clever interplay from Alexandr Sojka and Michal Sadílek led to the latter having a good chance at goal which he hammered home.

From there, the rest of the match saw South Africa struggle in attack. This is not a surprise given their overall talent level compared to the rest of the field, and what we saw from them versus Mexico in their opener. They struggled to come up with any consistent methods for puncturing Czechia’s man-to-man marking. The end result was 8 of their 12 shots coming from outside the box, with several of them from very long range.

Fortunately for South Africa, they were gifted a late penalty off of a questionable handball decision from an outside the box shot by Thapelo Maseko, which hit Pavel Sulc in-tight. Teboho Mokoena scored from the spot, and the remaining minutes saw South Africa come to life a bit more, although not creating any big chances to nab a late winner. A draw means both countries will need a shock result next week to have any chance of advancing to the round of 32. —MM

Substitutes save Switzerland’s day

All four teams were level on one point going into the second round of fixtures in Group B. In theory, this was the ideal scenario to yield open games — a win would almost guarantee a knockout spot, while a loss wouldn’t be catastrophic at all since there would be another chance in a few days.

Switzerland and Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, came out unwilling to bother the scorekeepers. The match quickly resembled the pattern of the Swiss opener, with Murat Yakin’s side being allowed to dominate possession and territory.

They produced absolutely nothing against the Bosnian low block, putting up a grand total of 0.06 xG in the first half. Granit Xhaka was the only midfielder who seemed to understand the importance of getting the ball forward quickly, while Dan Ndoye was the lone attacker to even try posing a threat.

Bosnia occasionally got at the Swiss defence on the break but they too struggled to fashion any clear-cut chances, so the match was well on course to be a goalless snoozefest. Yakin finally decided to try going for the win after the second hydro-commercial break, making his first substitutions with a triple change that crucially saw exciting youngster Johan Manzambi introduced.

The fresh faces had an instant impact as Ruben Vargas put a ball into the box seconds after coming on. It eventually reached the Freiburg midfielder, who emphatically volleyed it home. Bosnia and Herzegovina were then forced to come out of their shell and were left exposed to further attacks, which ultimately made the scoreline harsher than it ought to have been after Tarik Muharemović was sent off for a DOGSO offence. Vargas added a second before going on to set up Manzambi for the third.

The Bosnians need not be demoralised by this result, though. For one, they’ll always have the stunning consolation strike that Ermin Mahmić scored, and more importantly, they’re still very much in contention for the knockouts as long as they beat Qatar on Wednesday. —NS

Qatar turn in the most shameful performance of the tournament

This was not a competitive football match. Qatar took their last shot in the 10th minute. Canada scored in the 17th minute and never looked back. A red card for Homam Elamin in the 33rd minute, shortly following Canada’s second goal, all but sealed the result.

The hosts started the second half appearing fairly content to rest up a bit and record a comfortable three-to-four goal win. Qatar were apparently not content to let this happen, and we got what is likely to remain the worst moment of the tournament. Assim Madibo snapped Ismaël Koné’s leg in half with a nasty tackle from behind in the 51st minute, and Qatar went down to 9 men.

Madibo’s distraught reaction suggested he didn’t mean to make such a dirty challenge, but it was still the kind of reckless and irresponsible tackle that should see him suspended for further international fixtures beyond this tournament, assuming Qatar don’t progress to the next round.

That incident seemed to motivate Canada to really pile on their opponents and punish them for what happened. Les Rouges looked genuinely angry for the remainder of the game and had zero intention of letting off the accelerator, even 10 minutes into stoppage time. They ended the game with 32 total shots, the majority of which came after Qatar were reduced to 9 players.

We also got probably the fastest ever goal celebration tribute to an injured teammate, less than 10 minutes after Koné was stretchered off the pitch.

Koné has battled some tough early career knee and ankle injuries that have kept him from reaching his full potential, but he was fully healthy this season, appearing 35 times and scoring 6 goals in Serie A for Sassuolo. It’s horrible timing for a player who’s already been so unlucky throughout his career. —KM

Mexico and South Korea turn in a snoozer… until the 85th minute

Based on their first round fixtures, most expected this match to be one of the most entertaining of the tournament. Instead, both teams looked extremely risk averse and failed to record 10 shots or 1 xG on the night.

Mexico scored early off an error by Korean goalkeeper Seung-Gyu Kim and promptly stopped committing numbers forward. South Korea did not seem to realize they’d gone behind, and stuck to their original defensive possession gameplan until about the 80th minute.

We did at least get one sensational highlight out of the game. This sequence featured more than half of South Korea’s total xG on the night, and produced an outstanding double save from Raúl Rangel.

South Korea are still in line to finish second in the group, with a draw or better against South Africa looking like an extremely achievable result. Mexico now only need a draw against Czechia to guarantee 1st, which is also looking quite likely on the evidence of their first two games. —KM

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.” If you’re interested in football betting, check out this post on why we started Variance Betting.