Uruguay did not have enough balls – Newspaper Kommersant No. 225 (7426) of 12/03/2022
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The ending of the tournament in group H of the World Cup in Qatar turned out to be insane in terms of drama. She did not let the Uruguay national team into the playoffs, although they had a great match against the Ghanaians, beating them with a score of 2: 0, but opened the door to the 1/8 finals for the South Korean team, who pulled out a victory – 2: 1 – in a meeting with by the Portuguese in stoppage time and ahead of the Uruguayans in terms of the number of goals scored, with the main additional indicators being equal.
The face of Luis Suarez, covered in horror with his hands, will no doubt be included in the list of the main pictures of this World Cup. He was replaced in the middle of the second half of the match, in which everything for his team is going surprisingly well. Until the end of the meeting for about ten minutes, the Uruguayans win with a score of 2:0. But it is clear where this fear comes from. Suarez, sitting on the bench, has just learned that, having done everything possible and even apparently impossible, given the context, his team is still on the verge of relegation from the championship. On the verge of such a hurtful, so deeply hurting failure that few people have ever experienced. Even the German flight on the eve of her, it seems, can not be compared.
The Qatari World Cup turned out to be, perhaps, a record in terms of the number of various transformations and transformations that some of its participants experienced in the short distance of the group stage.
Some of them were thrown out of the tournament, others were sent to the playoffs after a bad start. But the Uruguayan transformation turned out to be, of course, the most memorable – if only because of its suddenness, because of what happened at a moment when magic already looked impossible.
By the match against Ghana, the Uruguayan coach Diego Alonso finally realized that if you blindly believe in the values that brought success in the past decade, failure is inevitable. And the meeting with the Ghanaians from the bench, along with Edinson Cavani, was watched by captain Diego Godin, although a few days ago Alonso could not imagine his team without him in the same way as without Luis Suarez, another frontman of the “golden era”. Personnel changes seemed inevitable, given how dreary the Uruguay national team played, having not scored goals against either the Koreans or the Portuguese, in previous matches. Yes, at the current championship there was no team more boring than her.
But time passed, and the Uruguayans confidently held the title. The victory, without which the group H outsider, who has a single point in the asset, could not count on the playoffs, seemed as far away from them as the homeland of his players from the host country of the World Cup. And soon she got even further.
The Ghana national team, which played much more interestingly, drew a very good combination in the opponent’s half, the crown of which was Jordan Ayew’s shot from the penalty line.
Goalkeeper Sergio Rochet got to the ball, but could not hold it in his hands, and Mohammed Kudus got the rebound. Kudus rushed past Rochet and fell.
Then there was a long scene, the main participants of which were the referee Daniel Siebert and VAR, and the spectators with frantically beating hearts were the players of both teams. Siebert suspected that there was an offside position during the attack. But it turned out that everything is in order. And then it turned out that Rochet had indeed shot down Kudus.
The penalty was taken by André Aya. And he performed as if he wanted Sergio Rochet to take him, weakly breaking into the right corner from himself. Rochet did not disappoint. And the Ghanaian sectors at the Al Janoub stadium plunged into deathly silence.
From this episode, some kind of mysticism was drawn, which, I must say, does not often become relevant in top football matches.
The Ghana national team suffered the most offensive defeat in its history at the 2010 World Cup. In South Africa, she was close to setting an African record – breaking through to the semi-finals. No, she was already there, in the semi-finals, because at 1:1 in the quarterfinal match with the Uruguayans, Suarez, insuring the goalkeeper at the end of extra time, beat off the ball flying into the goal with his hand, earning both a removal and, most importantly, a penalty kick. Dominic Adiya managed to screw it up, and then screwed up another one – already in the post-match penalty shootout. The Ghanaians left the World Cup, the Uruguayans reached the semi-finals.
After 12 years, the Ghana national team again blundered from the penalty spot – and again allowed the Uruguayan team to rise from the dead. Just inert and insipid, unable to come up with anything sensible ahead, she suddenly blossomed into a lush rose in the middle of the lifeless Qatari desert. These were already the former Uruguayans – those from whom they always expected sharp football and the fight for medals in any tournament.
They were unlucky when Darwin Nunez, who reacted to the transfer that cut the center of the Ghanaian defense, deftly threw goalkeeper Lawrence Ati-Ziji: the ball at the “ribbon” was taken out by defender Mohammed Salis. But she was lucky in the next sharp, accented attack. She went through the right flank, from where a cross came to Luis Suarez, who calmly stopped the ball, processed it and almost certainly shot it. Ati-Zidzhi caught the blow, but the ball still continued to move towards the goal, and Georgian de Arrascaeta, who finished him off with his head, did not give the abyss a chance.
And soon the same de Arrascaeta gave a stunning trick. Adjusting under the canopy, laying the body, he fired from the summer, from under the opponent. And he fired so hard that Ati-Zidzhi could not even try to help the Ghanaians.
And that goal was the perfect symbol of the Uruguayan renaissance. Georgian de Arrascaeta made his debut for Uruguay in 2014. Formally, his track record includes four dozen matches for her. But these were either little-meaning matches, or matches when he came on as a substitute before the final whistle: there were always players much more famous than him in the Uruguayan squad. In Qatar, de Arrascaeta was also an understudy – he got only half an hour in a meeting with the Portuguese. And he would never have made it into the starting XI had it not been for an emergency situation that called for extraordinary measures from Alonso.
And in the parallel match, everything was also curious. In it, the Portuguese, already enjoying a ticket to the playoffs, quickly opened the scoring in the match with the Koreans. But the South Korean team evened the score in the first half thanks to the misfortune with Cristiano Ronaldo. The goal was led to a rebound from his back after a corner. And the Koreans, just like the Uruguayans, had one point before the final round, and the goal difference was even a little better. That is, they remained in the race for the playoffs. And they needed a win.
They strove for it desperately, throwing into battle in the second half almost all the players who were on the bench who knew how to play in attack. But the Portuguese team held on. And she also stole her moments, which could finish off the intrigue.
The Uruguay national team also held on. After the break, she surpassed her rivals in everything for some time. But the Ghanaian team gradually came to life. And here again, Sergio Rochet found himself under the rays of spotlights. Mohammed Kudus fired from a couple of tens of meters so that it was not clear how to escape. Rochet pulled the ball into the corner.
And then Luis Suarez grabbed his head with his hands. Once upon a time, news from other stadiums came with a huge delay. Now they come instantly. And Suarez, like all Uruguayans, of course, found out that his team had been stabbed. That the Korean leader Son Heung Min in stoppage time dragged the ball to the Portuguese penalty area, and there he was supported by Hwang Hee Chan – and that’s all, the Koreans won, equaling the Uruguayans in the not yet officially recorded group table on points, on goal difference, but ahead of them by the number of goals scored – four against two. Ten minutes later, which had been an eternity for Korean players glued to mobile phone screens, the table was officially fixed, and tears from the eyes of the Uruguayan players, who were convinced that all magic has limits, whipped like a waterfall. It was not they who made it to the playoffs, but the teams of Portugal and South Korea.
Their rivals in the 1/8 finals were determined late in the evening Moscow time after the completion of the matches in group G. In it, the Brazilians guaranteed themselves a ticket to the playoffs ahead of schedule, and the Swiss, Serbs and Cameroonians claimed the second place. The leaders played with the Cameroonian team, and the Serbian team played with the Swiss.
Third and final round
Costa Rica-Germany 2:4
Tejeda, 58; Neuer, 70 (own goal) – Gnabry, 10; Havertz, 73, 85; Füllkrug, 89
December 1. Al-Hawr, Al Bayt stadium. 67,054 viewers.
Match statistics
Costa Rica Germany
Shots on goal 7 32
shots on target 5 11
Bars / bars 0 2
Corner 1 14
Offsides 4 3
fouls 3 9
Warnings 1 0
Percentage of possession 32 68
Japan Spain 2:1
Doane, 48; Tanaka 51 – Morata 11
December 1. Doha, Khalifa International Stadium. 44,851 viewers.
Match statistics
Japan Spain
Shots on goal 6 14
shots on target 3 5
Corners 0 2
Offsides 2 2
fouls 9 6
Warnings 3 0
Percentage of possession 18 82
Group E final standings
V N P M O
one. Japan 2 0 1 4:3 6
2. Spain 1 1 1 9:3 4
3. Germany 1 1 1 6:5 4
4. Costa Rica 1 0 2 3:11 3
Group H
Ghana-Uruguay 0:2
De Arrascaeta, 26, 32. Missed penalty: André Ayew (Ghana), 21 (goalkeeper)
December 2nd. El Wakra, Al Janoub Stadium. 43,443 viewers.
Match statistics
Ghana Uruguay
Shots on goal 10 12
shots on target 4 7
Corners 5 2
Offsides 2 2
fouls 18 11
Warnings 2 5
Possession percentage 51 49
South Korea-Portugal 2:1
Kim Yong Gwon, 27; Hwang Hee Chan, 90+1 — Horta, 5
December 2nd. Ryan, Education City stadium. 44,097 spectators.
Match statistics
South Korea Portugal
Shots on goal 13 13
shots on target 6 6
Corner 5 4
Offsides 1 5
fouls 9 10
Warnings 2 0
Percentage of possession 39 61
Group H final table
V N P M O
1. Portugal 2 0 1 6:4 6
2. South Korea 1 1 1 4:4 4
3. Uruguay 1 1 1 2:2 4
4. Ghana 1 0 2 5:7 3
1/8 finals
03.12: Netherlands—USA, Argentina—Australia
04.12: France—Poland, England—Senegal
05.12: Japan-Croatia, Group G winner-South Korea
06.12: Morocco—Spain, Portugal—Group G 2nd
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