Well, I’m here for Matchday 3. It’s going to be a doozy, with 4 games talk about. This is when the World Cup really kicks off. Sure, the opening games are great. Especially with the US playing on home soil. But historically once you get to 3 games a day (now 4 with the extended format), it becomes all soccer, all the time. So without further ado, let’s just get right into it.

Switzerland 1-1 Qatar

On paper, this wasn’t an exciting way to open up the day. Switzerland are a pretty consistently solid team but Qatar are a relatively unknown entity. This is the first World Cup that Qatar qualified for, after appearing in their first tournament 4 years ago as the hosts. Asian qualifying is a little complicated but all you really need to know is it’s really forgiving. In the end, Qatar effectively qualified by drawing Oman and beating the UAE. They likely wouldn’t have qualified for this tournament under the old qualification format.

Despite all of that, this is the World Cup. There are always surprises in store. We got that here in the day’s opener when Qatar equalized in the 90+4′. Before that, the game was very predictable. Switzerland completely dominated proceedings and scored in the 17′. At that point, it seemed like it was only a question of how many goals they were going to be able to score. Instead, as time went on the story started to become how the Swiss couldn’t run up the score to improve their goal difference. And then in the end, it became how Qatar shockingly got their first ever World Cup point. It was honestly close to the best outcome for a neutral. Much more fun than seeing an easy Swiss win.

Brazil 1-1 Morocco

Heading into the day, this was the marquee match out of the four. Brazil are Brazil. They’ve won the most World Cups ever (5) but their last was in 2002. They’ll be feeling it’s about time they add a sixth. Morocco don’t have that history but they made a surprise run to the semifinals in 2022 where they lost 2-0 to France. The question around them would have been whether or not 2022 was just a fluke. This game proved that wasn’t the case.

Morocco started as the better team and got their goal in the 21st minute through Ismael Saibari. Brahim Diaz provided a ball for the assist that split the two Brazilian CBs. Going down 1-0 seemed to start to wake Brazil up a bit. They were fully awoken when Vinicius Jr leveled the match in the 32nd. It was a goal that had that classic Brazilian flair that we all love. As for the rest of the game, Brazil definitely played better than they had early on but in the end it was a relatively even game where both teams probably deserved a point.

Before moving on to the next game, I do have to point out some poor aspects of Brazil’s performance. They gave the ball away too often and Morocco could have punished them more early. It was the whole midfield but Lucas Paqueta was probably the worst one. Also, Gabriel did not look good in defense. He was nowhere near what he was for Arsenal this season. That will need to improve. Brazil has the attacking talent but they need the rest of the team to provide a solid base for that attack to take games over.

Scotland 1-0 Haiti

We knew coming into this one that the Tartan Army were going to provide an electric atmosphere. And that held true. What an environment they created. What I didn’t know was how exciting of a game this was going to be on the field. It was a fantastic watch for a neutral. And surprisingly, it was almost entirely due to Haiti.

Scotland did get the lone goal through a deflected John McGinn strike in the 29th minute but it was Haiti’s style of play that was the real story. When you’re a team that is technically overmatched, the overwhelming tendency is to sit back and try to be tough to break down. We see it all the time. Just look at the day’s first game. But Haiti decided the best way to handle the situation was just to play direct and constantly run at their opponents. It was incredible to watch and they definitely deserved at least a point.

In the end, this was a massive 3 points for Scotland. Brazil and Morocco are heavily favored to finish as the top two teams so it was massively important to win this game. My concern is whether Scotland can get another point from either of their two remaining games. As for Haiti, for as entertaining as their style of play was I’m concerned that a better team like Brazil or Morocco will punish them with more than one goal.

Australia 2-0 Turkiye

This was a game I was hoping I wouldn’t come out of regretting my decision to stay up.  And lucky for me, I don’t regret it.  Well, not really.  The story here is pretty straightforward.  It was a fantastic performance for the Aussies and yet another let down for Turkiye.  I’ll start with the latter.

Turkiye have massively disappointed in recent big tournaments (mainly the euros).  You look at their squad and see a bunch of really skilled players who play at some very big clubs across Europe.  But then when it comes time to put it out on the field, they don’t turn up.  That continued tonight.  They looked like a group of players who had never played together.

Conversely, Australia played well above their talent level.  That’s not to say they don’t have some exciting players.  Nestory Irankunda looked electric in the attack and got his team’s first goal.  And the team looked so organized.  Turkiye had more of the ball and were desperately trying to get back into the game but Australia were so resolute defensively.  They eventually got their second goal late on to seal it.  Very impressive performance.

Stray Thoughts

• Derek Rae is one of the best in the business.  So why the hell was he relegated to calling the Switzerland/Qatar match?  Give that man a higher level game
• It came up in the Brazil/Morocco game that a corner can now be taken away by review but you can’t give one.  Someone explain how that makes sense?  If there’s an error in who last touched the ball, it’s an error.  Regardless of which way it’s going.  Just correct it
• I’m the second half of Australia/Turkiye, Warren Barton remarked that Australia needed to just get to the hydration break because they were under so much pressure.  That’s a problem.  These hydration breaks fundamentally change the games.  It’s like taking a timeout in basketball when your opponent is on a run.  It works for that sport but it just feels wrong here.  Not in the spirit of the game

So that wraps things up for Matchday 3.  It’s been quite the test of endurance.  But I do for the love of the game.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Matchday 4 brings, with Germany and the Netherlands making their debuts.  I’ll see you there.