Key events
Nic Houghton gets in touch to say: “Having spent last night watching the England game atop a German mountain (amazed I could still stream it in HD, although had to pay for the privilege as not on free tv), I’m climbing down from on high and seem to have entered a rather odd new reality.
“That point on Bellingham being cocky, and needing to be benched seemed rather odd. Unless I missed something, the interview after the game was handled rather well, that “whatever” was probably less dismissive and far more angled toward the daft/divisive questions asked by ITV.
“On another point, I appreciate that Norway must be gutted to go out, they played well and probably should have scored more, but am I wrong in thinking VAR simply creates the same situation we had before it was introduced? I mean, we complained about bias, errors, and crooked referees before VAR. Is this not just the same but with more video and social media? I guess as an England fan, I would say that…
“Thanks for thread and have a lovely Sunday!”
I’ll leave Will Unwin to chew over VAR, refereeing and general controversy with you, as he’s taking over now. I’ll be back later on. Until then, you’re in safe hands.
After cautious praise during the group stage over the lack of VAR micromanagement and generally unfussy refereeing, it certainly feels like tech has come to dominate the conversation again during the knockouts. Theories as to why might range from the increased pressure on officials to football’s decision makers being terminally addicted to drama, even when it’s drama nobody wants.
My sense is that, when it comes to VAR, the vast majority of fans agree less is more, with a growing number leaning towards none at all. The trend for effectively re-refereeing small incidents is especially infuriating: the collective groan when a ref is called over to the monitor to watch, in slow motion, some minor contact is fast becoming the soundtrack to the game. Expect to hear it several times more before the end of the tournament.
Another email has winged its way into my inbox, with the ominous subject line “football is dead”. Ole Kristian Hartvigsen writes: “What a great invention VAR is for Fifa. They can now nudge every game into their favoured outcome. A disallowed goal here, a red card there and – hey presto – you have dramatic wins for the big boys teeing up a fantastic semi-final with England and Argentina. And the beauty of VAR is that you can always claim that it is technically correct. Because you can always find a way to chalk off a goal – technically – if you want to. Every single goal scored from a corner since the invention of football can technically be disallowed. And of course if you really want to, you can always find a situation leading up to a goal that technically gives you an opportunity to chalk it off (see Egypt’s goal against Argentina), or you can decide not to (see Argentina’s goal against Egypt).
“Elite football is a game of fine margins. Fifa now has the tool to make sure that those margins always go in the favour of their preferred outcome, which is what gives them the most commercial success. Never again will we see a Greece 2004, or indeed a potential Norway v Switzerland semi-final in a World Cup. Football has died.”
Bellingham shares mum’s advice on discipline
Jude Bellingham has revealed his mum’s advice helped him walk his suspension tightrope in England’s World Cup quarter-final win against Norway.
Bellingham would have missed the semi-finals had he picked up a yellow card but, with wise words from his mum, Denise, ringing in his ear, he avoided a booking and reached the amnesty point safely. “My mum’s been telling me all week to watch my language, watch my tackles, watch my face, watch my emotions,” he said. “So, I think she drilled it into me all week about being careful of that yellow card.
“And to be honest, when you play the right way, and credit to the referee [Clément Turpin], he was class, he still let you communicate in a respectful way. A lot of referees don’t let you do that. So I think when I get the balance right, and there’s a referee who’s willing to listen, it makes it a lot easier.
“And in the end, it was just a really well-competed game of football, and luckily I got through it.”
It was not pretty in sweltering conditions and, for large parts of the match, England did not have control. However, thanks to Bellingham they found a way for a third successive knockout game, which gives the 23-year-old hope going into the semi-final.
“The game was split into loads of different kind of facets,” he added. “You know, some of it’s technical, tactical, and for me, the biggest one is psychological and how you can manage setbacks, how you can manage adversity. And this team showed yet again that they can do it, and that’s a really valuable skill and trait to have going into this stage of the tournament.”
PA
We’ve got an email! Krishna Moorthy writes: “Good morning Will. A bit groggy after the late night. A few remarks to fill the time between now and the next 60 hours (thankfully there is Wimbledon this evening).
“1. Norway paid for their profligacy. They should have wrapped up the match by half-time. 2. Embolo was stupid. Everything else is noise. My auto-correct changes Embolo to emboldened which is apt, actually. 3. Tuchel is being honest in his assessment and the cocky Bellingham reply is a preamble to what to expect in the semis. I won’t be surprised if Tuchel benches him. 4. With Brazil gone, I have no horses left in the race but would very much love the next best team, Spain, to win but I can’t see ANYONE beating the French. 5. The best coda to this GWC would be when Mbappé refuses to receive the trophy from Trump. Do that and I will be a lifelong France supporter.”
Any Argentinian readers still awake out there? Are the celebrations ongoing? Judging by the photos coming in, it’s been some night.
World Cup Daily has landed, with Max Rushden joined by Barry Glendenning, John Brewin, Lars Sivertsen and Leander Schaerlackens to discuss all of last night’s shenanigans. Turn on, tune in, drop out.
Switzerland continue to fume about the use of the “mistaken identity” rule to send off Breel Embolo for simulation last night, this after Leandro Paredes had initially been booked for fouling the forward. Murat Yakin, Switzerland’s head coach, has found himself in the strange position of having to argue that Paredes should never have been booked in the first place because, had he not been shown a yellow card, VAR could not have intervened to erase it and punish Embolo instead. “There was definitely no reason to award that yellow card [to Paredes], I don’t understand it,” Yakin said. “It was a harmless situation. I don’t understand why the decision was made and our player was sent off.
“This rule destroyed our game today. I think it is extremely hurtful. We are not going to go to the semi-finals but I think we deserved to be there. To be eliminated that way hurts a lot, but I can tell you we are very proud of our performance in this tournament.”
Pablo Iglesias Maurer was at Kansas City Stadium to watch Argentina triumph, and he has some thoughts, which you can read right here:
Morning (BST)! Was there a football match last night? You’d never know it from the sea of crumpled tinnies, suspect splashes on the pavement and occasional lost soul in an England shirt, dazed and bleary-eyed, still wandering the streets on my commute in.
Of course, there wasn’t just one match, but two, with Argentina beating Switzerland 3-1 after extra time to set up an epic semi-final against Thomas Tuchel’s brave boys. Let’s start with the reaction of Lionel Scaloni, Argentina’s head coach, who has been very keen to stress that it’s going to be a football match, as he aims for a rare double of a World Cup and a World Stating The Obvious award.
Jonathan Howcroft
That’s enough from me for now. It’s over to Will Magee to keep you updated for the next little while.
There will be plenty of coverage of the 1986 quarter-final in the coming days. Take every opportunity you can to enjoy Bryon Butler’s commentary of Diego Maradona’s solo goal that sealed England’s fate in the Azteca.
I’m sure IFAB mean well, but if they could put things back to how they were around 1998 and then all get in the bin, that would be terrific, cheers.
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England’s reward for downing Norway is… a semi-final date with Argentina. That’s right, England v Argentina in a World Cup knockout match in North America. What could possibly go wrong?
The defending champions have not been at their best in the knockout stages and they required the good fortune of a VAR intervention to send off Switzerland’s Breel Embolo and gift them the upper hand in the Kansas heat.
Fifa match officials’ novel use of the term “mistaken identity” reared its head again in sensational circumstances during Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and Switzerland, leaving Swiss forward Breel Embolo in tears and the European side a man down for a total of 67 minutes against the defending champions.
“It’s completely not understandable,” Switzerland head coach Murat Yakin said afterward. “I know that they will protect their referee but this rule destroyed the game today.”
Norway leave the World Cup with their heads held high. The last of the dark horses won over neutrals with their on-field demeanour and off-field Viking Row. It surely won’t be another 28 year wait between finals.
Unsurprisingly the heat and humidity of Miami took its toll on the Landslaget with even HyperbotGoalMachine3000 Erling Haaland needing to be substituted before the final whistle.
“To paraphrase Chico Marx to Mrs Teasdale in Duck Soup, who are you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?”. Ronnie, I wish all my emails began like this.
“Given FIFA’s claim that the ball’s ‘heartbeat’ did not detect a deviation when the Norwegian keeper’s clearance had first hit the Spidercam’s wires, should Croatia be even more concerned about their late equaliser against Portugal being stamped out when we couldn’t see a deviation but the ‘heartbeat’ had picked up on a mere follicle? How can we trust FIFA technology?”
Indeed. Although I think the word technology at the end of that sentence might be redundant. Jonathan Wilson filed on this topic just hours ago.
Previously, the rant from the Egypt manager, Hossam Hassan, about the need to keep Messi in the tournament could have been dismissed as the bitter rambling of a disappointed man, but then you remember Fifa gerrymandered the qualifying process for the Club World Cup to ensure the presence of Inter Miami and Messi and that Fifa suspended two games of Cristiano Ronaldo’s three-game ban for his red card against Ireland in qualifying so he could play in every group-stage game (and then had to declare an amnesty for three other suspended players).
Fifa likes famous players to be involved. What if entertainment concerns, the grubby lust for growth, have come to supplant sporting concerns?
This is the fire with which Infantino is playing. Sport only means something when it is believable: football without faith is nothing. Marketing can never take priority over sporting concerns. When the perception of integrity has gone, the doubt lingers – as it did for Romanians around the turn of the millennium. And if the doubts linger too long, the sport is dead.
Sidebar, Whatever bears such a striking resemblance to Neil Innes’ I’m Free to be an Idiot that the former Monty Python collaborator received a songwriting credit and a share of the royalties in an out of court settlement.
Wonderwall might be the England team’s Oasis song of choice, but surely they change it up to this more apposite (and far better imo) number.
Gabriel Clarke was the reporter with the responsibility of getting postmatch quotes from Tuchel and Bellingham in the flash zone – and he did a remarkable job.
Tuchel became wide-eyed and animated liked Spud during his job interview in Trainspotting.
Bellingham, meanwhile, gave the impression he did not care much for any implied criticism from the German about the team’s performance.
… asked to respond to that criticism, Bellingham was clearly not impressed. “Yeah, well, whatever. Whatever,” he said, his body language also telling. “It’s difficult out there. It’s a tough shift. All the players have put in a tough shift, so my thoughts and appreciation goes to the players who were out there and put in a great shift yet again.”
Pressed further in another post-match interview, Bellingham said: “Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to play in those kind of conditions against Erling Haaland, [Martin] Ødegaard, [Antonio] Nusa, [Alexander] Sørloth. That’s not an easy team to play against. So, I think we’ve tried to create a positive environment. You’re not going to win every game, popping the ball and making a thousand passes. Sometimes you have to win dirty, and we’ve done that again tonight.”
“At the risk of being the 1,000th to say it – it’s the Cable of God,” jokes George Peacock.
Get those gags in now folks because there will be enough “of God” references over the coming days to last a lifetime.
Norway were aggrieved that England’s opening goal was allowed to stand after the ball appeared to strike a cable attached to one of the overhead TV cameras, allowing Elliot Anderson to accept possession unopposed and feed assist-maker Anthony Gordon.
“I can sit here and cry but I don’t want to do that,” remarked Ståle Solbakken. “We have done everything we could – the players have been phenomenal throughout the tournament. OK it was bizarre but it’s part of football and why it is the best sport in the world because things like that can happen. We have to accept it.”
Fifa released a statement saying a sensor in the ball showed no evidence it had touched a cable.
Our own Ed Aarons rated Noni Madueke as England’s poorest performer. On US TV Zlatan Ibrahimovic kept the internet furnace stoked with a half-time rant that suggested England were effectively playing with 10 men.
Thomas Tuchel has clearly done extremely well to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup but the number of unused and underperforming members of his squad will make for interesting historical analysis.
There were some handy cameos elsewhere though with Djed Spence making an impact at left back, Morgan Rogers adding much needed energy, and Dan Burn reminding everyone that even in the modern passing and possession era it’s perfectly fine to stick on a big fella when you’re defending a lead and enjoy watching him head crosses away.
Barney touches on the bewildering omission of Kobbie Mainoo. The Manchester United midfielder has played no part in England’s campaign so far despite being a reasonable option off the bench in his team’s first five matches and the blindingly obvious one in their sixth.
Tuchel went to absurd lengths to avoid playing him against Norway, instead starting a desiccated Declan Rice, replacing him with Eberechi Eze in an advanced role that destabilised the entire structure, followed by a half-fit right fullback Reece James as he played whack-a-mole to problems of his own making.
Across those 120 minutes the central midfield duo went from Declan Rice and Anderson to Bellingham and Anderson, to Reece James and Anderson, to Morgan Rogers and Anderson. Not Kobbie Mainoo, notably, who is presumably behind David Beckham, a cone, a giant lizard and the TV camera cable in the running for a spot. Why is Mainoo here? Why is Adam Wharton not here? These are questions deserving of a genuine answer.
Barney Ronay was in Miami to witness the latest instalment of the Jude Bellingham force of will tour. Beneath the deserved adulation for England’s two-goal hero there is no shortage of concern for a team that has lost its spark and a coach that no longer seems to know his best XI.
At times this felt like the familiar England parade of we are the hollow men, stuffed men, waiting for the game to happen to them, football as a slow suffocation in that thick sweet air. But they also had Jude Bellingham, who seems increasingly to exist as an entirely different category of human in this team, out there playing a parallel tournament, one that has to this point swept the rest of them along in its wake.
Preamble
Jonathan Howcroft
Whether you’re just catching your breath after an epic double header, or waking up to the news of a pair of thrilling quarter-finals, stick with us here for all the news and reaction from a gripping 2026 World Cup.
Just four teams remain alive in the draw with England and Argentina joining France and Spain in the semis. For the first time since FIFA’s rankings began in 1992 the World Cup semi-finalists are the top four sides in the world on paper.
England were made to toil in the Miami heat by Norway but not for the first time Jude Bellingham delivered when it mattered on the big stage.
Argentina also required extra-time to battle past European opposition; their hero was Julian Alvarez, but they also owe Breel Embolo a debt of gratitude for getting himself sent off when Switzerland had an historic result in their sights.
If you have any thoughts on any of the above, or indeed anything else World Cup related, do get in touch with an email – jonathan.howcroft.freelance@theguardian.com. Let’s get into it!
