Ghana earn deserved draw with peak sufferball

England fans, I hope you enjoyed your one (1) week of believing Thomas Tuchel was a changed man who loved high-octane attacking football. Let’s get on with the notebook:

Portugal get back on track against Uzbekistan

After a surprise draw with DR Congo in their first fixture, Portugal took on debutantes Uzbekistan needing a win to stay in contention for first place.

They were quite lethargic in possession for long stretches of their opener but showed much greater intensity from the off here. Crucially, they kept their foot on the pedal after scoring early on, making sure of running away with the game.

There was just one change in attack as João Félix came into the XI in place of Bernardo Silva, shifting Pedro Neto out to the right wing. More importantly, though, Cristiano Ronaldo was not a complete passenger up front as he showed some moments of sharpness against a static Uzbek low block, registering 10 penalty box touches, seven shots and two goals.

The standout aspect of the Portuguese performance for me was their attacking set-piece design. Austin MacPhee, who masterminded some of the most novel and effective routines in the English Premier League last season with Aston Villa, deserves flowers if he was the one to convince Ronaldo not to take a free-kick for once, as Nuno Mendes caught everyone by surprise for the second goal. The fourth also came from a dead ball as Bruno Fernandes' low corner delivery pinballed its way in, with the situation arising from a clever free-kick which saw the Manchester United midfielder lift the ball in behind to the decoy-turned-run of Ronaldo.

Portugal still have a job to do in the final round of the group stage, as they’ll need to beat Colombia in order to avoid a likely Round of 32 match against England. That game should give us a much better indication of the actual extent of their improvements. —NS

Carlos Queiroz’s sufferball did it again

The 2026 World Cup was missing a certain something. It’s not been a lack of goals, because there've been plenty of them. It’s not been a lack of stars being stars, because we’ve seen the likes of Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé put forth masterful performances. Rather, we’ve not seen too many disgustingly effective low blocks make an appearance. Leave it to Carlos Queiroz and Ghana to satisfy the sickos though with their 0-0 draw vs England.

From the start, Ghana were situated in a 4-5-1 block and tried to compress the space between the lines. This is not a surprise given Queiroz’s managerial history over the years. Passing lanes towards England’s attackers were shut off, with next to no space in the middle. This was helped by the slow tempo of England’s passing, as a lot of distribution came from outside of the defensive block. The risk averse nature did play a part in their ability to quickly win the ball back. While the shot count was in England’s favor during the first half (6-0), none of the shots conceded were of good quality.

More of the same occurred as the second half began. There were switches and speculative long balls over the top attempted from England, but it didn’t amount to much. One of the few things which did help England create moments of uncertainty for Ghana’s low block was Declan Rice’s movement, which helped create a couple of speculative shots in the 56th minute. Before the late flurry of shots from England, the two big events of the 2nd half involved referee decisions at the tail end of fast attacks from Ghana. Jordan Pickford rushed out of his area on a 50-50 ball and collided it with Prince Kwabena Adu, yet it went England’s way for a free kick. The even bigger controversy happened a few minutes later, with Ezri Konsa doing a rash slide tackle from behind on Abdul Fatawu in the box. On a different day, those two events could’ve led to a lot worse outcomes for England.

From there, the match descended to chaos in the final minutes, including a late flurry which saw Nico O'Reilly hit the crossbar with a header before Harry Kane lashed the follow-up. A scoreless draw was the end result between these two sides. You can definitely quibble with how England set up to try and pierce through Ghana’s low block, including the squad selection, but I think a lot of credit should go to Queiroz and the players for executing the gameplan at a high level. England are still on track to win the group should they take care of business vs Panama, while Ghana have an interesting encounter vs Croatia which could carry real ramifications for the round of 32 matchups. —MM

Croatia solve glaring problem to keep World Cup hopes alive

It wasn't working for Croatia, and true World Cup disappointment was looming off in the distance.

Halftime arrived against Panama, and what had unfolded was a stalemate, emphasis on "stale." While Croatia could be pleased with holding a team that can be dangerous as a counter-attacking threat to one single 0.05 xG shot in the first 45 minutes, their own attack had mustered the same lowly xG volume. Panama had hit the crossbar, and had a couple more threats that only just barely missed a connection on what would have been a shot from a dangerous spot.

Croatia had plenty of possession through Luka Modrić and Mateo Kovačić. Their pace of play was reasonably quick. With Josip Stanišić pushing high up the right flank alongside Marco Pašalić, there was a clear intent to use that pair to stretch Panama to one side, then exploit the spaces this would create.

Not the worst start of a plan, but something was missing. Maybe there's something extremely abnormal in Croatia's pass network that jumps out?

Somehow, the deepest player here is Petar Musa…who is a striker. There's being a false 9 — which isn't Musa's game with FC Dallas in MLS anyway — and there's whatever this is.

Musa completed one action in the Panama box, and made no other contributions within 40 yards of goal. Again, there's merit as a lone striker playing against three center backs to try and drag someone out of position to open space for runners, but you have to get somewhere near those center backs for them to pick you up in the first place.

No shock, then, that Zlatko Dalić removed Musa (and Joško Gvardiol) at halftime. Dalić shifted the seemingly ageless Ivan Perišić from left wing to left back, with Martin Baturina shuttling over to set up largely in the left half-space. Substitute Andrej Kramarić roamed freely nearby as the 4-2-3-1 became more of a fluid 4-4-2 (especially when Kovačić drifted forward to create a real overload). Ante Budimir took over for Musa up top, and seems to have been given the more simple instruction of "be a striker."

With true width on both flanks, a new overload to balance the Pašalić-Stanišić node on the other side, and an actual human presence on the front line, Croatia were suddenly able to carve out big chances (if still a low volume, as they finished with just 6 attempts).

Forced out of their compact shape, Panama couldn't cope once Pašalić's backheel sent Stanišić into space with three runners in the box, and a fourth trailing.

Pašalić could have buried the game three minutes later on a jailbreak counter following a Panama corner, but the damage was done. With their chances of advancement on the line, Panama had one miss from José Fajardo on the hour mark from open play that registered as an even moderately serious chance, while Carlos Harvey headed over from a corner…and that was that.

It was a good defensive recovery from Croatia, who struggled to keep pace with England, and it might offer something of a dry run for how to approach Carlos Queiroz's extremely against-the-ball Ghana in the Group L finale. —JA

Colombia unconvincing, but top of Group K

If you didn’t stay up late for the nightcap, last night’s match between Colombia and DR-Congo looks pretty straightforward. The Colombians were the better side, but couldn’t quite find the back of the net, until they finally broke the deadlock and cruised to a deserved 1-0 win.

But DR-Congo’s chances and the saves by their goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi-Nzau had the feeling of being much bigger than this graph made them look. It was a game on a knife’s edge from start to finish. But all that’s likely to be remembered is this deflected finish from Daniel Muñoz, who made one of his trademark surging runs from right back into the penalty area.

The Colombians were once again defined by superstar Luis Diaz looking like their one serious attacking threat, and the rest of the team looking disjointed and struggling to advance the ball into dangerous areas.

We won’t have to wait much longer to see if this Colombia team is a real threat to go far, or if they’re just Diaz + 10 supporting cast members. They finally face a stiff test in their next match against Portugal, only needing a draw to top the group.

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.