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Key events
It’s about the football but also, it’s not about the football at all. I can’t even begin to detail everything that football has taught me; currently, I’m learning about Cape Verde.
Alexander Abnos has some thoughts on the man of yesterday, Alireza Beiranvand of Iran.
The latest World Cup Daily is poised to caress your cochleas.
So what of Uruguay? I’m afraid even the wizardry of Marcelo Bielsa can’t create talent, and when you’ve lost the likes of Diego Godin, Luis Suárez and Edinson Cavani, it’s not easy to find anything remotely as good.
Email! “Cape Verde is the Cameroon of 2026,” reckons Krishnamoorthy V. “And Vozhina is the new Roger Milla. Keep the fairy tales coming. Isn’t it what the world cup finally is all about. They dilute the toxic Giannis and the Donalds.”
Yup, I’m having a couple of weeks off the World Cup from next Monday for Wimbledon and was just musing, while stroking my chin of course, that what the early stages of those tournaments share in common is being about lesser lights and surprise bangers.
And what a joy Kevin Pina’s goal was – in execution but also in celebration, their first at the World Cup.
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What I love about Cabo Verde is the discipline, structure and composure of their defending. They shut out Spain with difficulty but also with comfort, the confidence in what they were doing palpable. And they also know how to counter, the question now whether they can change gears and force the issue against Saudi.
What a World Cup Cape Verde are having. A draw with Saudi, in their final group match, might be enough to get them into the last 32; a win certainly will.
Beiranvand, by the way, holds the world record for the longest throw in a competitive match – 61.0026m – and for the longest drop-kick, 78.014m. Not bad for someone who was once sleeping rough.
But let’s return to Iran for a moment. Their goalie, Alireza Beiranvand – or “The Wall of Persia” as he’s known – had to run away from home to become a footballer, his old fella less than enchanted by the ruse and cutting up his gloves. I wonder how he feels now his boy has been player of the match at a World Cup.
Egypt, meantime, have taken control of things, coming form behind to beat New Zealand.
Group G is pretty tight. Belgium, who ought to be favourites, are between teams, the old stagers not what they were and younger players not as good – perhaps yet but possibly ever. They’ll hope to beat New Zealand in their final match and really should, but their attack doesn’t look poised to click.
I do wonder if they’ve enough goals in them when it comes down to the biggest matches, but they may only need one to win them. And though it’s true that if you stop Lamine, you’re a long way towards stopping Spain, that’s easier said than done and, if Olmo stays in the team, though he’s not a possession player in the same way that Fabian Ruiz is, he’s a very serious goal-threat.
France, I think, have the most routes to winning games – their battery of attackers might be the most ridiculous we’ve ever seen – but Spain remain the hardest to beat, their control of possession and space meaning opponents need to make a lot out of a little. Their defence is far from impregnable but, though it’s not as hard to get at as when a midfield of xabi Alonso, Sergio Busquets, Xavi and Andrès Iniesta were in front, Rodri, Pedri and Dani Olmo isn’t bad.
Spain are an entirely different proposition with Lamine Yamal, aren’t they? Apologies if that sounds unacceptably basic, it is, but sometimes, basic is what we need. He gives them width, edge, pace, invention – and his teammates the confidence they have him so anything is possible.
But hatred of the US as a single entity is also a confusing idea, albeit one that fits a certain monotheistic world view, where there can only be devils and angels. It involves demonising as a single failed entity a hugely diverse and varied nation with elements of every kind of people and every kind of culture, the great human experiment, with all its freedoms and flaws; and doing so based on the actions and pronouncements of a few governing Maga Republicans.
If America has become this single thing in so many people’s minds, it is perhaps because this is the way we experience things now. Everything is flattened, foreshortened, turned into sound and noise. Never underestimate the effect of the hive mind, that constant third space we carry around with us. This World Cup is the first global event to take place so deep inside that online space, experienced in peeled-eyeball detail through a screen as a set of images and shouted ideas
This is how our flow of information works now, and indeed how Donald Trump took power, flooding the zone, shouting the simplest message above the noise. The US may feel like an expression of violence simply in its daily existence, an endless amplification of human talent, greed, desire, cruelty, where nobody is ever really in charge, they’re just out there riding it like a runaway bronco. But the US is also not Trump. Seventy‑seven million people voted for him, 272 million did not. A nation of 350 million people with more than 100 significant immigrant cultural groups cannot be one thing.
The US is the world in a very large and varied grain of sand, endlessly rich in all its beauty, energy, flaws and vices. To hate this is a baffling idea. If you don’t like America, what do you like? This is what humans are.
OK, so before we begin stepping our way through yesterday – depending, of course on where we live – let’s begin by throwing things forward with Barnay Ronay’s latest missive.
Preamble
Howdy pardners! So Cape Verde are in with a serious chance of the second phase, likewise Iran – wins over Saudi and New Zealand respectively will seal it, but a draw might be enough … but nor are the latter two out of things.
Meantime, Spain are up and sprinting, Uruguay aren’t what they were, and we’ve another set of fixtures but a few hours away, tantalising us with their imminence. So we’ll look forward to Argentina v Austria, France v Iraq, Norway v Senegal and Jordan v Algeria.
Welcome to World Cup 2026 – day 12!
