Lost In America - Free, Daily World Cup Newsletter: Day 13 - Sludge Factory

After a tournament filled with adventure and whimsy, we got six straight hours of watching teams try to get spinach out of their teeth.

Portugal 5 - 0 Uzbekistan

Well, every so often, the three functioning neurons I have left fire at the same time, and I get something right. From yesterday:

Look, there's a very good chance that Ronaldo will score here, even if his teammates have to Weekend At Bernie's his ass around the penalty box. A penalty when already up four, his 18th attempt at a freekick, lining him up at the six-yard box and pinging the ball as hard as they can off of him dozens of times. When he does, whoever's announcing the game will tell us this is his "response" to Messi's and Haaland's and Mbappe's work yesterday, instead of the farting corpse that it will be. Anyway, this should be a get-right game for the Portuguese.

Two goals against Uzbekistan doesn't really prove anything, but boy did Fox try to act like it was. Ronaldo didn't have to move, didn't have to stretch a defense, because there was just so much space anyway. Roberto Martinez did make one tweak, and it was kind of a brave one so credit to him, in dropping Bernardo Silva for João Felix. It's not the hardest call, as when a team has Vitinha, João Neves, and Bruno Fernandes, as good as Silva was this season, he's the fourth-best midfieler on that list. Which is really saying something, but that's the Scrooge McDuck vault of talent Martinez gets to swim in.

What that did is give Fernandes way more space to play in, as Felix and Neto kept things stretched wide and Silva wasn't there to step on his toes, and keep Uzbekistan's defense stretched. He gets to play a bit more from the #10 spot, as you'll see here, first against Congo:

Then yesterday :

With Portugal pinning Uzbekistan around the area, Ronaldo didn't have to, y'know, run. His second goal was on the counter, but Fernandes had so much room to do a whole closing to a West Side Story number through that Ronaldo had time to get up there.

There probably isn't too much to be learned from this, given the difference in firepower. Credit to their set-piece coach, Austin McPhee (you may remember him from such episodes as, "Session bass player who is always on the Aston Villa bench as their set-piece coach"), who used Ronaldo's ego as a decoy to score off one free-kick and nearly another. Probably shouldn't have wasted it on Uzbekistan, because now it's on film, but hey, it's also a match that quickly gets to ya-ha time where a team gets to pull out all the party favors.

England 0 - 0 Ghana

If you weren't familiar with Carlos Quieroz Sufferball, boy did you get a big ol' cricket paddle of it right to the teeth. Only three players allowed to cross the halfway line, the midfield instructed to be so on top of their defense that if the defenders couldn't get a whiff of their ass, everyone's running laps, diving, time-wasting, starting needless scraps, this was being tossed right into Satan's detention.

What was obvious is that the one point was far more important to Ghana than the two points England lost out on. England can put it on Panama, win the group, and everything is as it was going to be. Perhaps the only worry is if a team attempts to do the same thing in the knockouts, when the urgency and pressure ramps up way more. With their ill-gotten point, Ghana are now odds-on for the knockouts.

Thomas Tuchel had to know what was coming, but didn't seem to care all that much. Starting Djed Spence over the far more expansive Nico O'Reilly smacked of security-first. Anthony Gordon is pretty much useless against a packed-in defense, unless a manager enjoys watching someone who doesn't know how to drive attempting a three-point turn. Having two holding midfielders against a Ghana side that was rarely, if ever, going to poke its head out of its cave was also overkill. But making sure he didn't fuck up the draw keeps England in the driver's seat. It's hardly the disaster John Strong wanted to make it on the Fox broadcast. It just felt that way to anyone who had to sit through it. Perhaps Strong, like the rest of us, was just taking it out on the world for having lost out on these two hours watching a dog eat its own shit.

Croatia 1 - 0 Panama

This was basically the same thing as England-Ghana, except Croatia got their fullback loose for one cross after some neat interplay with their winger on the same side, something England couldn't put together. Stanisic plays in one delightful cross, get the goal, and then Panama simply didn't have the juice to mount any comeback. They also weren't interested in attacking a Croatia midfield that really can't move. Simply allowing Modric and Kovacic the ball unchallenged means they can do what they used to.

Colombia 1 - 0 DR Congo

The same again! DR Congo wanted to stall out Colombia the same way they did Portugal, but the minute they got a little too adventurous, they turned the ball over and Colombia had an avenue for the line-splitting pass up to their forward that Congo had closed off all night. It's probably not a great sign that Colombia were less threatening when they hauled off the loose collection of bones that comprise James Rodriguez. But they found the goal without him, and now they're driving the bus in the group. There's a force to Colombia, when they've need it, that they can punch through with Diaz, Munoz, Mojica, and Suarez just through sheer will.

Day 14 Preview

We'll do this by group, with six games a day through Saturday.

Group B (3pm ET): Canada vs. Switzerland, Bosnia-Herzegovina vs. Qatar

Everything to play for in this set. US fans will want to pay attention to the Bosnia-Qatar game. If there's a winner, either way, that is the most likely R32 opponent for the Yanks, given the inscrutable matrix FIFA uses to decide what third-place teams go where. Meanwhile, Canada and Switzerland will vie for the top of the group. The Swiss are just savvy enough to ride out the somewhat formless pressure Canada play with, and then hit them when they leave the backdoor unlocked. No matter what happens, Jesse Marsch will attend his postgame presser pouring pig's blood over himself while telling the assembled media he just wants the focus on his players.

Group C (6pm): Brazil vs. Scotland, Morocco vs. Haiti

We could probably solve our fossil fuel problems if there was some way to harvest the sweat coming off the Scottish running around Miami, as gross as that sounds. Cold fusion has to be possible in there, somehow.

Scotland will try to suckerpunch Brazil while making things soupy and sludgy for them on the attack. There's some buzz that Neymar may get a run out, and if Brazil is counting on an old, ouchy, and questionably sober Neymar to unlock whatever escape room the Scots put them in, they're pretty much boned for this tournament. There's a path here for Scotland, because they can just generate so much more activity in midfield through McGinn, McTominay, Christie, and Ferguson than Brazil can with Casemiro and his walking stick, whatever it is Lucas Paqueta does, and the overworked Guimaraes.

Morocco just need to not outthink themselves, take their three points, and take the easy advancement. They would win the group if the Scots get spiky.

Group A (9pm): Mexico vs. Czechia, South Korea vs. South Africa

Mexico are already through as group winners, so can do the suspension prevention dance while getting some subs some run, while also not losing any momentum. South Africa and Czechia have to win to have a chance of going through, but they're also just a class below they're opponents. Given South Korea's slickness with the ball at times, if South Africa are as charitable giving it away as they've been in their first two matches, they'll take another hiding.