We’re now a week into this tournament.  The final 8 teams from groups K and L get to make their debuts.  It’s hard to get my head around.  But I’ve been loving every minute of it so far.  Here’s my look at Matchday 7:

Portugal 1-1 DR Congo

For a neutral, what another great start to a matchday.  For me, it was indescribably infuriating.  I’m half Portuguese so I’m all in on the team for every major tournament.  So you’ll have to allow me a moment to rant.

Portugal took the lead just 6 minutes in via a Joao Neves header.  At the time he scored, Portugal had 87% possession.  DR Congo were just sitting back with everyone behind the ball.  But rather than keep that pressure on, Portugal relaxed and allowed them to get back into the game.  Yoanne Wissa scored a header to equalize just before halftime.  And then both teams looked equally likely to get a winner in the second half but we ended up with a famous draw for DR Congo.

Ok, here comes the rant.  Lionel Messi scored a hat trick yesterday in Argentina’s opener.  Cristiano Ronaldo responded….by doing absolutely nothing.  He does nothing for his team and all he cares about is getting his goals.  He got in the way of a low cross that had he just dummied it and let it go, Bruno Fernandes would have scored and Portugal likely get the 3 points.  It’s just embarrassing at this point.  Portugal aren’t going to go anywhere in this tournament unless Ronaldo sees the bench.  Which certainly won’t happen.  He’s going to go out of this tournament with a whimper while his former rival makes the separation between them that much larger.

For DR Congo, I think they showed they have a pretty good chance of advancing out of the group.  They have some good players, namely Wissa and Bamkambu in attack.  Credit to them for getting a result.

England 4-2 Croatia

Now that was a fantastic watch.  You gotta love 6 goal games.  The marquee matchup coming into the day lived up to expectations.  At least for entertainment value.

It was a game where Croatia twice came back from one goal deficits in the first half. Harry Kane got the scoring started with a penalty in the 12th minute that he was able to retake after Croatia’s Dominik Livakovic just barely stepped off his line early.  Baturina replied in the 36th before Kane got his second with a header from a Declan Rice corner in the 42nd.  FC Dallas striker Petar Musa leveled it deep into first half stoppage time.  Awesome half of soccer.

England came out on fire in the second half and were unlucky to only get one goal in the first 15 minutes.  They probably could’ve scored 3 or 4.  But Jude Bellingham got his just two minutes into the half and Marcus Rashford would get England’s fourth in the 85th minute. 

The takeaway here for England is that they are no longer a conservative side.  Rather than try to manage the game and close it out, Thomas Tuchel made attacking substitutions to try to go for more goals.  For Croatia, I just think they’re too old. Or at least, their important players are too old.  Luka Modric is 40 and Ivan Perisic is 37.  They have some good younger players but they still rely too heavily on the old guys.  And when a game is as open as this one was, they’re going to struggle.

Ghana 1-0 Panama

I had zero expectations with this game.  All I knew coming in was that it was really important for one of the two teams to take 3 points.  This is a group that also has England and Croatia, who are heavily favored to be the top two teams.  So realistically this was all about one team potentially positioning themselves well for a possible third place qualification spot to get to the knockouts.

For over 90 minutes, it didn’t look like it was going to happen.  We were stuck at 0-0.  I was planning on talking about how this was the first real dud of the World Cup.  But of course, soccer had other ideas.  Ghana burst forward in the 90+5′ led by star Antoine Semenyo.  He got the ball out wide to Brandon Thomas-Asante who played a low ball across the six yard box.  Caleb Yirenkyi was there to get on the end of it and put it in the back of the net.  Incredible scenes in Toronto. 

The win gives Ghana a chance of advancing out of the group while Panama are likely done.  Fine margins.

Colombia 3-1 Uzbekistan

This was one of those games where once the teams settled in after about 15 minutes, it became pretty clear how it would play out.  Colombia were fully in control and Uzbekistan were hanging on, just trying to get to half at 0-0.  Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t get it done.  In the 40th minute, Colombia right back Daniel Muñoz made a great run into the box and was found by Luis Diaz.  He got the ball on target which was all it took to beat the Uzbekistan keeper.

The second half looked like more of the same, but Uzbekistan shockingly equalized on the hour mark.  Eldor Shomurodov hit a fantastic volley that was pushed on to the post and ricocheted back across goal.  Abbosbek Fayzullayev headed into the empty net.  Their dream was short-lived though as Colombia restored their lead five minutes later through Luis Diaz.  They’d get a third right before the final whistle when Cucho Hernandez did some incredible work on the wing before crossing for Jaminton Campaz to bury the header.

In the end, I thought Colombia looked pretty good but probably should’ve done more to not let Uzbekistan stick around.  It didn’t end up hurting them though and thanks to the Portugal and DR Congo draw they’re now top of the group.  Job done for now.

Stray Thoughts

• It’s always fun to see what managers pop up at the World Cup.  Today, it was Carlos Quieroz who caught my attention.  It’s his sixth World Cup and fifth in a row.  He brought South Africa to the tournament in 2002, then Portugal (2010), Iran (2014, 2018, 2022) and now Ghana (2026).
• We had some noticeable rain in Toronto for Ghana vs Panama.  From my recollection, that’s the first adverse weather we’ve seen this tournament after beautiful conditions in the other games.

That’ll do it for Matchday 7.  We’ve now seen every team in this competition play.  And it’s been pretty special.  There’s just something about seeing each team get their tournament started.  They all have something to prove, whether it’s why they can win the competition or why they can compete at this level.  I think we have a decent idea of where these teams all stand but of course we’re only just getting started.  See you for Matchday 8!