FIFA World Cup 2022: results of the eleventh game day

On November 30, at the World Cup in Qatar, the decisive matches of the final round in groups C and D were played. So, in group C, the Argentina national team confidently beat Poland (2:0), and Mexico defeated the Saudi Arabia team (2:1) . In group D, both matches ended with the same score 1:0. Tunisia defeated France, and Australia knocked out the obscure Danish team from the tournament.

Poland – Argentina – 0:2

Both experts and fans assumed that the Polish national team would play 0-0. But no one expected such disgusting football in the performance of a team that has one of the best strikers of our time at the forefront. Argentina, in turn, only needed a victory so as not to worry about the result in a parallel match. From the very first seconds, Argentina began to storm the gates of Wojciech Schensny. In the first half alone, the Argentines landed 14 shots, nine of which were on target. And in the 39th minute, a penalty kick was awarded to the Poles, which went to the main star of the Argentine national team, Lionel Messi. However, the goalkeeper of Poland parried the shot from the spot. Thus Shchensny reflected already the second penalty in this tournament. In the match with Saudi Arabia, he did not allow Salem Al Dosari to score.

Argentina still managed to score: it happened at the very beginning of the second half, after an excellent combination, the pass from the flank was closed by Alexis Mac Allister. In the 67th minute, the Manchester City forward increased the lead. And then something happened that everyone was waiting for and feared at the same time: Poland with the whole team lined up around their penalty area and began to cowardly protect the score 0:2 in favor of the other team. The thing is that in a parallel match, Mexico scored 2 goals against the Saudis and caught up with Poland in terms of the difference between goals scored and conceded. Therefore, in no case could Poland concede more, since this team was physically incapable of scoring. As a result, the match ended with crazy numbers in possession (27-73), shots (3-24) and shots on target (0-13). The fact that all these statistics were in favor of the Argentines speaks for itself.

Lionel Messi was great in this match, he personally controlled the pace of the game and distributed a huge number of aggravating passes. In addition, the game with Poland was a record for Leo: he played for Argentina for the 22nd time in the world championships and surpassed Diego Maradona.

Now Messi owns a national achievement, and more often than not, only the Italian Paolo Maldini (23 games), the Germans Miroslav Klose (24) and Lothar Matthäus (25) played at the World Cup. Messi has a chance to become the absolute record holder if Argentina advances to the semi-finals, and he himself plays in all matches.

Poland goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny is the third goalkeeper in history to save two penalties in one World Cup. Previously, American Brad Friedel (2002) and another Pole Jan Tomaszewski (1974) succeeded in doing this.

In the 1/8 finals, the Argentina national team will play with Australia on December 3 (Saturday) at 22:00, and the Polish national team will meet with France on December 4 at 18:00.

Saudi Arabia – Mexico – 1:2

The Mexicans for the exit had to beat the Saudis with the largest possible score and hope for the help of Argentina. Albiceleste fulfilled its part of the deal, but the Mexicans themselves could not defeat the Saudi Arabian national team, although there were plenty of moments. The first half ended with the already familiar zeros on the scoreboard, but in the second the game opened up even more and, finally, the goals started. On the 47th and 52nd minutes, the Mexicans scored a ball, and the second one became a real decoration of the match. Midfielder Luis Chavez sent the ball into the top corner with a long-range free kick. Thanks to this goal, a unique situation developed in Group C – Mexico and Poland were absolutely equal in terms of points, goal difference and goals. They finished the match between themselves in a draw (0:0). In this case, an additional indicator came into play – yellow cards. During the tournament, the Mexicans had more of them (7-4), and this brought Poland to the playoffs. The only option for Mexico was to score more, and they ran to attack without looking back at their goal. In the 95th minute, they paid the price for such a reckless game, conceding a goal, which, however, did not decide anything, except for a simple formality that they still flew out due to goal difference, and not because of yellow cards.

Thus, Mexico was eliminated in the World Cup group stage for the first time since 1978. Their legendary round of 16 losing streak that stretched from 1994 to 2018 was also interrupted. Before the tournament, the Mexicans probably hoped to break this curse in another way.

Tunisia – France – 1:0

It may seem surprising to some that the reigning world champion lost a match to the modest Tunisian team. However, looking at the starting lineups of the teams, it becomes clear that the head coach of the French, Didier Deschamps, simply decided to carry out a serious rotation: not the first or even the second line-up entered the field. The French national team, after two more rounds, secured access to the playoffs, so Deschamps decided to give the main stars of his powerful team a break. Tunisia, on the other hand, needed only a victory to try to get around Denmark and Australia in the standings. This determined the pattern of the game: for most of the game, the French lazily rolled the ball without much danger to other people’s gates, and Tunisia tried to impose a fight. In the 58th minute, Tunisia legend Wahbi Khazri scored the only goal of the match. It’s funny that at the moment of the goal, a footballer was already standing on the edge of the field, who was supposed to replace Khazri. So, immediately after the goal was scored, the striker went to the bench. The French team still tried to win back not so much for the sake of the result, but for the sake of maintaining a reputation. And they almost succeeded: in the 98th minute, Antoine Griezmann scored a goal, the referee blew the final whistle and only then ran to watch the replay at the direction of the VAR. The ball was canceled for offside, which caused much controversy after the match.

Didier Deschamps’ team suffered their first regular-time defeat in a major tournament since the quarter-finals of the Brazilian World Cup. Then France lost minimally to the Germans, who took the title. Also, 24 players played for France at the current World Cup – this is a record for all tournaments.

Australia – Denmark – 1:0

If Qatar is called the main failure of the tournament, then the title of the main disappointment of this World Cup rightfully goes to the Danish team. The Danes, who recently played in the semi-finals of the Euro and very confidently passed the qualifying tournament, played primitively and impossibly slowly. The team, which needed only a victory in the match, could not even organize the final onslaught after a missed goal. They just rolled the ball from side to side, as if to show that they didn’t care if they made it out of the group or not.

Australia, for the second time in its history, reaches the playoffs of the World Cup (the first in 2006). At the same time, the Australians have already set one personal record: for the first time in the world championship, they won two victories – in the second round they beat Tunisia (1: 0).

Daniel Prilepsky.