Key events
I really enjoyed this piece from Yara El-Shaboury.
It’s all about content creators. Yes, content creators. You might not like them, you might not even understand them, but they’re here and they’re not going away.
Norway have rested Haaland and have made 10 changes for the France game!
Clearly this match here is the one to watch tonight.
Justin Kavanagh – one of our regulars (hiya Justin!) has written in:
“I’ve been lucky to visit Toronto several times, but never for a football match. Which is a shame, as it strikes me as a perfect World Cup city, in a way that New York can never really could be, with the stadium out in the Jersey swamplands. Why FIFA chose that place for the final is, like their ticket prices, beyond me.”
I’m hearing this a lot. My vote would have been Mexico City for the final. But to be fair, all the stadiums in this World Cup have been quite something. Say what you want about the North Americans, but they know what they’re doing when it comes to arenas.
This is the first time these two teams have played each other.
In an increasingly homogenised world, where everything flattens and turns to beige, that’s pretty neat if you ask me.
Iraq are chasing their first ever point in the World Cup.
Their one and only involvement came in 1986 where they lost 1-0 to Paraguay, 21- to Belgium and 1-0 to Mexico.
OH!
Senegal will also be without first-choice goalkeeper Édouard Mendy, who was injured against Norway.
Interesting to note that Kalidou Koulibaly starts on the bench for Senegal.
The former Napoli and Chelsea defender – now in Saudi with Al-Hilal – had a howler against Norway.
“Every ball I touched went wrong,” he said.
He’s got the hook for this one.
We’ve got our first email:
It’s from John Brennan and it’s titled ‘Pedant corner’. Uh, oh…
“Hi Daniel, Not to be too pedantic, and maybe this belong to a rival podcast of Football Weekly, but can we describe Senegal as being neighbors of either Morocco, Cote D’Ivoire or South Africa when they don’t share a border with any of them?
“I attended the Iraq v France game and despite the rain, it was a beautiful occasion. The Iraq fans provided plenty of noise and color despite clearly being outclassed (I missed the 2nd goal as I had turned to the Iraqi sitting beside me to say there was a mistake in there keeper. We agreed the goal wasn’t entirely his fault as the pass from defender was terrible). The highlight for me was on the train to the game seeing an American/Iraqi with his son who was 7/8 years old dressed in their Iraqi shirts carrying Iraqi flags and thinking how rare it must be for them to be able to show their roots without fear in America. As an Irishman in suburban Long Island, I know I can fly an Irish flag outside my house without ant problem. An Iraqi flag? Going by the way some of the people talk here in my town, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Thanks John. As an African myself, I certainly feel an affinity with other African nations. I know that my fellow countrymen in South Africa are not showing much of the Ubuntu spirit right now, but I’d like to believe it still exists. And what is a border between nations anyway? Are we not all neighbours on this big rock floating in space?
Neither team has kept a clean sheet so far (though admittedly they have both faced Haaland and Mbappe).
So expect goals.
Senegal need at least two. A -1 goal difference should be enough to squeeze through to the last 32.
Starting line-ups
Senegal 4-3-3: Mory Diaw; Abdoulaye Seck, Ismail Jakobs, Krepin Diatta, Moussa Niakhate; Idrissa Gana Gueye, Lamine Camara, Habib Diarra; Sadio Mane, Ismaila Sarr, Ibrahim Mbaye.
Iraq 4-3-3: Ahmed Basil; Rebin Sulaka, Akam Hashim, Mechas Doski, Frans Putros; Ibrahim Bayesh, Zidane Iqbal, Amir Alammari; Ali Jasim, Ahmed Qasem, Ali Alhamadi.
Preamble
Daniel Gallan
It’s been a pretty good week for African football.
South Africa reached the knockouts of a World Cup for the first time. Morocco underlined their potential to go deep with a convincing win. And Côte d’Ivoire finished level on points with Germany to qualify in second spot from a difficult group.
Senegal could join their neighbours with a win today. Though they enter this game without a point having lost to France and Norway, the African champions (sort of) showed glimpses of their ability in those matches.
A victory over Iraq would take them to three points and improve their goal difference of -3. Right now Senegal are outside the top 8 of all the third-placed teams, but if all goes according to plan they could leapfrog Scotland and South Korea at least. According to Opta, Senegal have a 56.62% chance of reaching the next round.
First they have to win. Iraq will be organised and passionate. Their coach Graham Arnold promised before the tournament that his team was “capable of doing something that will shock the world”. Beating one of Africa’s best sides would do just that.
Kick-off from Toronto Stadium at 8pm BST/3pm local time.
Teams and other updates to come.
