Hey, all I thought I'd give the blog a break for a little while because I'm off on holiday for two weeks at the end of the week. But after this weekends matches in the World Cup which I thought could not get even more crazy turned out to be the opposite. Three big teams going out of the tournament, two global superstars being knocked out in possibly their last World Cup match ever, two penalty shootouts and England are yet to play their game. What a weekend and we've only just started the knockout stages of the competition.
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| a dejected Lionel Messi as Argentina goes out |
Saturday featured two matches starring two of football's biggest superstars ever Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The first match was France vs Argentina. The first half was a close match as Antoine Griezmann scoring off a penalty, and Angel Di Maria fired in a rocket to make it 1-1. Then in the second half, Argentina started off the strongest by taking the lead courtesy of Gabriel Mercado who deflected the Messi's shot off his boot. France got back into the game by Benjamin Pavard who hit a rocket off his own from outside the box to the top right corner of the net. Then the next big star for France Kylian Mbappe took the stage by scoring two goals in 4 minutes, the first saw him shooting under the goalkeeper's body, the second was him threading the ball past the goalkeeper to the bottom right corner of the net. Then Messi tried one last bit leadership and delivered a cross which was headed in by Manchester City's Sergio Aguero. It wasn't enough as France held on for a 4-3 win.
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| Mbappe and Griezmann celebrating victory |
The second game on Saturday was European Champions Portugal with the other major global superstar Cristiano Ronaldo vs Uruguay who has Barcelona's Luis Suarez and Paris Saint-Germain's Edison Cavani in their ranks. After seeing Messi go out, everyone was going who's next to go, his teammate or his biggest rival. The answer was Ronaldo as Portugal were knocked out not by Suarez but by two wonder goals by Cavani making Saturday a day that PSG fans would never forget as two of their players stole the show. Suarez usually deadly striker delivered an unbelievable assist to the far post of goal for Cavani to head it in pas the Portuguese goalkeeper. Suarez tried from a free-kick, but it was comfortable for the save.
Meanwhile, Ronaldo was shooting, but instead of goals, they were blanks, after his performance against Spain he has been quiet in front of goal, maybe a case of peaked too early. Then 10 minutes in Pepe scored the equalizer which became the first goal conceded by Uruguay in the competition. Cavani responded with a world-class goal on the first touch from just inside the box to the far corner outstretching the goalkeeper 7 minutes later to make it 2-1 Uruguay. Portugal just had no response and late on Uruguay had a chance to make it 3-1 but the ball from Suarez was just too powerful for his teammate to control it.
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| Barcelona's Luis Suarez vs Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo |
So after Saturday's big shocks, everyone thought regular service would be resumed on Sunday. No one was expecting Russia vs Spain and the drama that we were about to see. Sunday's first game was the hosts Russia taking on 2010 winners Spain. Russia has been playing to prove everyone in the media that the comments they made about the team before the competition are wrong. Beating Spain that would put them back in the right way with the team. Spain scored 11 minutes in as Sergei Ignashevich scored an own goal of a free-kick. Russia got back in the game when they got a penalty before halftime scored by Artem Dzyuba. The second half was quiet compared to the first half, and it became the first game in the world cup to go to extra time. Then extra time went through without any meaningful chances, which meant it went to penalties. Spain 3 of their 5 penalties meanwhile Russia scored all 4 of their penalties to knock Spain out of the World Cup.
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| Andreas Iniesta consoling his teammate as captain Sergio Ramos looks in despair |
The last game of the weekend was Croatia vs Denmark. The game was starting off in wild fashion as Mathias Jorgensen scored from a throw-in which hit the goalkeeper and rolled in to make it 1-0. Then Croatia scored an equalizer as it was a similar style goal to James Milner's own goal in the Champions League Semi-final. After that, it was a possession-based game as both teams didn't want to create any more mistakes that would knock them out of the competition. They went to a penalty shootout again as it finished 1-1. It ended being 3-2 to Croatia despite Kasper Schmeichel's efforts.
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| Battle of Tottenham players as current Spur Eriksen takes on the former spur Modric. |
Like I said 4 crazy games in two days 3 big nations going out of the tournament which leaves the competition wide open. I'll be back with the England match against Columbia hopefully with England being in the quarterfinals.
KRO Mark
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