Encara Messi, forever

I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything like that. Back-to-back-to-back games where arguably the three biggest superstar attackers in the world just kept one-upping each other. The World Cup is awesome.

Senegal kept France at bay for awhile… and then couldn’t

One could argue France vs Senegal might be the biggest matchup we’ll get in the group stages. France are arguably the favorites to win the entire thing, with an obscene amount of talent at their disposal. Meanwhile, Senegal are credible dark horses in this tournament, having won the most recent Africa Cup of Nations in all but name.

The first half was good from Senegal, as Les Bleus looked bereft of ideas when trying to attack. They often tried to play around Senegal’s medium to low block, relying on wing combination attempts. Kylian Mbappé had lackluster moments in the few times he got the ball centrally. There were also some weird ideas attempted from France in-possession, including having Jules Koundé be the main outlet on the right flank. The end result was only one shot attempted. If there was one worry for Senegal, it would’ve been the physical toll it took from their players with all the jumps taken out of possession to make their block work.

On the other side, Senegal were regularly bypassing France's lackluster press during settled play. Due to the lack of a counterpress, Senegal also took calculated chances with playing in transition, springing the likes of Ismaïla Sarr and Nicolas Jackson into space. Jackson in general had an impressive all-around performance in the first 45 minutes, not just with his off-ball movement but also bringing teammates into the vicinity with quick hitting back to goal play. He was a subtle part of Senegal’s best chance through helping create room for Lamine Camara to receive freely between the lines, which began a chain of events that led to Sarr skying a square pass from Sadio Mané over the bar.

Things began to lean in France’s direction in the second half. Senegal conceded a high turnover from an opportunistic jump by Koundé, allowing Michael Olise to run at Kalidou Koulibaly with pace for a clear chance which forced a crucial save from Édouard Mendy. Almost immediately afterwards, there were two opportunities in the 54th and 55th minute where Senegal easily played through France to get Jackson in behind, but couldn’t generate a shot. In hindsight, it was a missed opportunity with how the game steadily became more chaotic (including a near penalty conceded by Mané on Mbappé). Eventually, France broke the deadlock from a brilliant pass by Olise from the right flank towards Mbappé in the box. From there, the rest of the match became a track meet for France, which favored their collection of stars. The final result was 3-1, with an Mbappé brace that made him the country’s all-time top scorer.

Senegal will be disappointed with how much they let go of the rope in the 2nd half and allowed the match to become full of fast attacks. It masked Mbappé’s deficiencies as a #9, and allowed him to utilize straight line dashes off the ball to wreck havoc against unsettled defenses. Meanwhile, shifting Olise’s position so he received the ball in areas more conducive to his strengths helped spring him to life. Senegal will go into their June 22nd encounter versus Norway taking solace from their first half performance, but knowing another loss could put their World Cup hopes on life support. —MM

Big man ting between Iraq and Norway

Iraq were the last team to qualify for this World Cup and entered the least welcoming group of them all, standing out as the clear underdogs against France, Senegal and Norway. The Lions of Mesopotamia didn’t want to just make up the numbers in just their second-ever World Cup appearance, though, and put together a spirited display against a Norway side playing their first major tournament since 2000.

While most (myself included) expected the star-studded Norwegian attack to streamroll through the Iraqi defence, that wasn’t the case at all in the first half. Graham Arnold’s side set out in a very well-drilled centrally compact 4-4-2 defensive shape, doing an excellent job of quickly closing down progression lanes to prevent Norway from getting their dangermen involved. They even managed to create a couple of half-chances before conceding a shot for the first time in the 20th minute, and looked very competitive going into the first hydration break.

Norway scored almost immediately after it with a well-worked team move that ended in left-back David Møller Wolfe making his first overlapping run of the match (having previously stayed back to form a three in possession) to set up Erling Haaland. Nevertheless, Iraq stuck to their game plan, which involved baiting their opponents up the pitch before launching long balls to the strikers, who made life uncomfortable for the opposing centre-backs.

Fittingly, it was Aymen Hussein who got the equaliser with a booming header. The 30-year-old striker had made headlines before the tournament due to being detained for hours by US immigration authorities, though that barely qualifies as a footnote in his incredible life story. While his club career has been patchy, he has always stepped up in the big moments for his national team, scoring in all four matches at the last Asian Cup before going on to net the goal that took Iraq to the World Cup.

A slip-up at the back allowed Norway to quickly restore their lead as Haaland’s intense pressing was rewarded. Iraq came close a couple of times in their push for an equaliser immediately thereafter, but ran out of steam in the second half.

Ståle Solbakken’s side looked in control of proceedings and eventually added a couple of more goals thanks to their aerial dominance in set-piece situations, with box presences including two towering strikers and defenders. There will be some questions asked of their defence, but Norway certainly will be hard to keep out at this World Cup. —NS

Encara Messi

He’s still here, he’s still the best. 20 years to the day after Lionel Messi scored his first World Cup goal, he recorded a hat trick against Algeria to tie Miroslav Klose’s record of 16 career goals in the tournament.

After 20 years of superstardom, I doubt I can write anything new or insightful about Messi that you haven’t heard before. But it is incredible to me that he is still 90% of the player he was at his absolute peak. He might have lost a half-step of pace, and his legs might not be able to handle 70 games a year anymore, but he’s still Messi. He still sees passing angles that no one else can see, anticipates runs entire seconds ahead of top defenders, and strikes the ball with impossible precision. Encara Messi, encara Messi, encara Messi.

Here’s the official, non-geoblocked version of the hat trick goal. But I highly recommend using a VPN to watch a better video of the entire hat trick with Spanish-language commentary from legendary Argentinian-American broadcaster Andrés Cantor.

It’s such a gift that we still get to watch this guy. —KM

Austria utterly unconvincing

With an extremely experienced team that genuinely borders on old, I thought that Austria would have very little problem holding the lead and limiting Jordan’s chances once they went ahead early. Instead, they allowed their opponents a surprising number of shots, and the match ended up being quite a bit closer than the score suggests.

An own goal and a stoppage time penalty while Jordan were in desperation mode were the big differences in this one.

Jordan’s counter-attack regularly looked threatening, with Ali Iyad Olwan’s goal being one of the highest quality finishes in the tournament so far. It’s a bad sign for their future prospects that Austria allowed for so much space on the break, and let their opponent get so many touches in the box.

Even though Algeria got thoroughly Messi’d in their game, I think that they showed quite a bit more quality than both Austria and Jordan, and still have an excellent chance to finish 2nd in the group. Austria-Jordan was an entertaining game, but not one that convinced me either is going far in this tournament. —KM

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