England labour past Panama and dreamland for DR Congo: World Cup Daily

20:50Being Nigerian myself and preferring Nigeria to have won the playoff, I wasn't too happy that they qualified for this tournament. But I have to say that so far, they have done well. And it is good that they've been able to banish those memories of 1974, which were not a good advertisement for African football at the time. And Whistlemark, he's brilliant in this game again. Yeah, particularly the second goal. Great finish. Tremendous energy. The way that he presses from the front, chases lost causes, scoring goals. I think Newcastle fans will be going, where was this player for the entirety of the season?

21:32Langer, another one actually, disappointed in the Premier League and has come alive at the World Cup. So maybe Eddie Howe can get more out of them next season. But he's the biggest threat to England. I'm looking at it from an English point of view in the last 32. Just keeps making runs in behind. We'll never stop doing that. And so England have struggled at times to deal with that, even against the opponents that they've played so far. So it's not going to be a complete gimme of a game. And Diocongo did hold Portugal as well in their opening match. I would expect England to beat them, though.

22:07Mark Langdon:Yeah, I mean, especially there'd be some brilliant scenes in Kinshasa after the Portugal draw. and those DR Congo fans who were in the Portugal fan park in Lisbon, all telling them, jumping around, was so good. What do you think they will think coming up against England? Well, obviously, they know that they are up against it and it's going to be an extremely difficult match. Sebastián de Sáb, the coach, knows that he has his work cut out for him. He has a lot of work to do to ensure that they are able to play an offensive type of football without being defensively disorganised because if they are defensively disorganised, if they give England lots of space, then England will be able to play the type of football that will bring out the best in them.

22:56So how he's able to create this balance, that's the work he has to do in the coming days.

23:03Mark Langdon:The other game in this group, Colombia-Portugal, you were making a bolognese and washing it up, Barry. It was, I was on galley duty.

23:10Max Rushden:So I didn't see any of the Congo-Isbekistan gang. I did see enough of Colombia-Portugal to know that Paraguay-Nil-Australia-Nil, this was not in terms of entertainment. This was right at the apex of a good nil-niler. And both teams were going for each other like drunks swinging in haymakers in a pub car park. And I'm not sure why, really, because it wasn't that important, the outcome. But I think Team Football Weekly, we were all watching it together as we had watched the England game. And the loudest cheer of both games was for a Cristiano Ronaldo miss.

23:55Mark Langdon:How dare you suggest that we are nothing but perfectly objective on this podcast.

24:01Max Rushden:A low effort that fizzed just narrowly wide of the upright. So, yeah, it was a very entertaining nil-nil draw. and perfectly complemented by my excellent spaghetti bolognese and salad. Sure.

24:17Mark Langdon:I've had worse.

24:18Max Rushden:I've had worse in the last 10 days.

24:21Mark Langdon:Okay, well, we can open that up to the floor if you want. But anyway, I certainly left the hob slightly cleaner. On this game, Mark, I thought Colombia were great. Colombia did not need to win this. And they just kept on going. And like, James was brilliant in this game, I thought. Yeah, I mean, to be throwing five, six players forward in the last few minutes when a point was good enough to win the group. I think just goes to show the way that they want to play the stadium. It might as well have been a home game for Columbia. And I think they wanted to kind of play entertaining football for their fans as much as anything else.

24:5437 shots in this game. I think it might be the game of the tournament. There's been a lot, so apologies if I've sort of forgotten one. But in terms of the standard of play, I enjoyed it as much as anything else that we've seen so far. Colombia are a very good side. They're in a nice part of the draw now. I don't know if I can change Darkhorses having gone for Turkey right at the start. But yeah, I would say that it's going to take a really good one to beat them. That's for sure. And then from Portugal's point of view... Don't say it. Don't say it. It's not that he started Ronaldo. It's just that at no stage did Roberto Martinez attempt to change it when they were being overrun at times.

25:37Colombia were the better team. And even just putting somebody else up front with him, maybe. To hold his hand, a chaperone. But he just kind of lets it play out as it was. But it was a really entertaining game. Colombia were the better side. Portugal had the chances as well. Really enjoyed it. Yeah.

25:55Mark Langdon:I mean, especially the Portugal side have got this wonderful midfield. They did replace a young Neves with an older Neves today. But they're not clicking. I don't know if it's just Ronaldo sort of not stretching the play. I don't know what you think. The thing with Portugal in general is that Ronaldo is the boss of the national team. It's amazing that the manager will have a problem if he has to take Ronaldo off in a game because it's a cardinal sin to do it. It's an international incident. And that's not helpful when a talismanic player is not performing well. Even if he's a talismanic player, you've got to take him off if he is not doing well.

26:41If you compare how well Messi is playing and how well Ronaldo is playing, you can see that it's not exactly the same. Messi still has that drive, that hunger. And before the tournament, I said that Messi might still just have one more World Cup in him. I don't think Ronaldo has a World Cup in him at all. Including this one? Yes, including this one. Including this one. Yeah.

27:14Mark Langdon:I mean, we've talked about it before, Barry, but it's annoying for them.

27:18Max Rushden:Yeah, well, I don't know how the Portuguese fans feel about him or how his teammates feel about him. They're obviously obliged to say nice things and butter them up in public, but if I was part of that Portuguese collective, I would really prefer if he was not in it because it would be so much better without him. And that's obvious to everyone apart from his fanboys who are delusional at this stage.

27:55Mark Langdon:Tomorrow's pod, we'll cover the late games tonight, so Algeria-Austria, that weird game that Austria might want to lose to avoid Spain and Jordan, Argentina, and we'll cover the first knock-up game, Canada, South Africa, and look ahead to the round of 32. But since we've got you, Asasu, and you are an African football expert, it's worth just asking what you've made generally. Because, you know, the 10th African sides in the tournament is a first. And as you say, nine are through, which is brilliant for African football. Brilliant, yes. But I am of the school that I don't want to have this, oh, the African teams have tried mentality.

28:33I believe in excellence. I want to see them go as far as possible. And when I start to see a good number of African teams in the last eight, maybe more than one in the last four, then we can begin to talk of African football doing well. Right now, yes, they have simply gotten to a stage where they would have had to have started from had the World Cup not been expanded to 48 teams. So let's see how far they go after the knockout phase, the first round of knockouts. Then we can begin to talk of, okay, is African football doing well or not doing so well? You're a hard taskmaster. Because I look at games that we should have won and we lost or we didn't win.

29:26Morocco should have beat Brazil, but they didn't. They had a brilliant first half, and if they had put two or three goals in, they probably could have psychologically dislodged the Brazilians, and they wouldn't have been able to come back. You look at the game between Côte d 'Ivoire and Germany. There was no reason to have lost that game. Absolutely no reason. They had the game in their hands. They should have put the Germans away. They didn't do it. so i i want to see more excellence from them i want to see them control games better and put opponents away when they are dominating there's no point dominating a game and not winning it because you know there is no applause in in in trying you get applause for doing the job i mean

30:16Mark Langdon:i've applauded england a lot of times for trying i've got to say you're a hard task master assassin but I admire your dreams and that'll do for part 2, part 3 we'll begin with that amazing last 10 minutes between Egypt and Iran

30:38Mark Langdon:Welcome to part 3 of the Guardian Football Weekly so last night's games, Group G Egypt 1, Iran 1, New Zealand 1, Belgium 5 so Belgium topped the group on 5 points Egypt 2nd on 5, Iran on 3 Mark what does that mean in the brackets they look on the edge don't it depends on the Algeria yeah it does people will know they'll know by the time they listen to this it was a dramatic last 10 minutes as you say me and Barry were watching it in a pub that was full of Iranian supporters obviously there is a big population of Iranians that live in Los Angeles I think outside of Iran it's actually the biggest I think it is so it was a great experience to be there the last 10 minutes they were pushing for the goal they did not want it to go as close as this with the best third place they hit the bar twice and also scored was it 93rd 94th minute it felt like one of the last attacks and then it was ruled out for a very tight but correct offside decision but most of the pub did not realise and I would say for about 30, 40, maybe even sort of a minute after 35, 40 seconds easily, they were still celebrating and the referee, the game's gone on.

31:57Yeah, so it was heartbreaking for them from that point of view because the celebrations were fantastic. One of the players put on some sunglasses as well to celebrate. I think they, I was going to say they deserve to win. I don't know if I'm just being, you know, just that last 10 minutes made me feel like that they deserved to win. But it was an entertaining game as far as Egypt to go. Like Salah came off pretty early in the second half, had some ice around his leg in the hamstring area. So hopefully he'll be OK because you want to see the best players performing at the World Cup.

32:33Max Rushden:Yeah, Mark and I went into this bar and all the stools at the bar were taken. Right. And there was two Iran fans, two women, who were nursing one beer between them while occupying these two prime spots of real estate. So that was enough to have us rooting for Egypt, if I'm honest. And then they ordered tap water. Oh, the outrage. Yeah, they ordered tap water. So I was secretly quite pleased when that goal was disallowed. I think the reason, even today, there are still people online saying that it should not have been ruled out. Because the goalkeeper was ahead. Because the goalkeeper was up the field.

33:14Max Rushden:I mean, he wasn't that far up the field, but he was ahead of play. He was ahead of play. And, yeah, some conspiracy theorists are putting it all down. This outrageous, in inverted commas brackets, completely correct decision down to the big conspiracy to have Iran knocked out of the tournament. I mean, they have suffered more than most teams, but this goal was correctly disallowed.

33:37Mark Langdon:On your level of excellence, the Sassu, where are Egypt at the moment? Well, being that they're the seven-time champions of Africa, and that they actually played in their first World Cup in 1934, it's not very good that it has taken them this long to get to the second round at the World Cup. They should have done a lot, lot better before now. That said, I have a lot of kudos for Hossam Pulsam, the manager of Egypt, one of the legends of football in Africa, who has been able to get the team this far. I know that there was a lot of criticism for him in Morocco after Egypt couldn't go all the way to the final.

34:28but he's been able to show that he's worthy of the position he's holding and I hope that Egypt will be able to better themselves as the tournament goes along.

34:41Mark Langdon:Belgium beat New Zealand 5-1, so I guess Mark they've arrived at the tournament. They have, yeah, and at one stage they were rushing to get the ball out of the net and to improve their goal difference and make sure they finish first because in theory you've got an easier draw if you won the group, but they've ended up with Senegal in the last 32, so not an easy game for them. This was their best performance, and you can argue about the level of opposition, but the forward players, no Lukaku in the starting XI, that was definitely the right decision. I know he came on and scored, but he was so bad against Iran that he couldn't play him again.

35:17This feels like De Bruyne having a lot of shots. He scored his goal eventually. actually Doku's back as well. He went home briefly to be at the birth of his child. A disgrace of going to see the birth of his child. Yeah, he feels quite a stir. So if you've got Doku, you can just kind of give him the ball

35:38Mark Langdon:and just let him run. And De Quetelaire is a clever player. He is. And Trossard is somebody that's very influential in moments for Arsenal. He doesn't always play well, but he does pop up with sort of important goals and he did again in this match. So they have got bits of a team that could go well in this competition, but it doesn't always work together. And I'd be surprised if they're in a sort of the area of the draw that you'd want to be in. But I'm not sure they're good enough to take advantage. Tomorrow we'll do a big here's the round of 32 and look at all once we know exactly what all the fixtures are.

36:14Mark Langdon:Steve Clark's resigned as Scotland head coach following their exit from the World Cup. So he's been waiting with this. He's got his two letters, hasn't he? just waiting on the coefficient or whatever it is. The most emotional part of this goodbye is for my players, without whom we wouldn't have had any of the memories that we've accumulated from 2019 until now. He said in a letter to supporters, they deserve all the praise and adulation that they receive, and it was truly an honour to be called their gaffer. Thanks for having me. Good luck to my successor. Look, he's up to a point done incredibly well, Steve Clarke, a Scotland manager, and past that point, not done well.

36:42Mark Langdon:Is that fair? I don't think it's fair. Okay, carry on. But your level of excellence is higher than mine, as we've established this. Yeah, but we have to talk about the playing capacity of Scotland. Do they have the players to go far in competitions? Let's consider how long. I think the last time Scotland were at the World Cup was in 98. And I was there in France when they were playing. So if you're talking about the gap between the last World Cup and this one, It just tells you the status of Scotland within world football and what it takes for Scotland to qualify. If Scotland want to have better outcomes in world football, then they have to find a way of increasing the quality of talent.

37:35The talent pool will have to increase. And that means that more work has to be done by the technicians within Scottish football to bring the quality of talent that will enable them to compete. I mean, if Cape Verde, with 500 ,000 people, are able to produce a team that can hold two world champions in the group stages, in their debut at a World Cup, I don't see a reason why Scotland can't put up those kind of performances and also go far. but it's going to take a lot of hard work because they don't have the population of England, they don't have a population of Germany or France, the talent pool is a lot smaller, so you have to work a lot harder.

38:22Max Rushden:That's it. That's not the road I thought you were going to go down, I have to say. I'm inclined to think, and I may be being unfair, that Scotland qualified for this tournament in spite of Steve Clarke rather than because of him. and their performance here. But Barry, if they hadn't qualified, you would have blamed him for it. So why won't you give him the credit when he actually gets them there? Because I think his tactics are so negative that he holds what could be a much better team back. That's why. And I think if it wasn't for an inexplicable lapse on Denmark's part against, I think it was Belarus, Scotland wouldn't be here at all.

39:04Max Rushden:wouldn't have been here at all and as they were here their uh performance against haiti was bang average at best and they were hopeless in their other two games and uh i'm surprised he's resigned but i presumed he would eventually be fired josh widdekin was in touch yesterday and

39:27Mark Langdon:he said this to me he said so he just never eats vegetables question mark i can't get my head around it. This guy seems to actively eat worse than my children. Ellis James got in touch. Mark Langdon Vegetable Watch is the greatest feature in the history of broadcasting. I'm not joking. Izzy's back from filming and we just listened to Mark Langdon Vegetable Watch as a family. I'm the only person in this house who likes football, but we all make an effort for Mark Langdon Vegetable Watch. It's the funniest thing in podcasting. Here we go. Since the last record then, Mark, how have we got on? My wife's desperate for Strictly tickets if Josh is listening today.

39:59Okay, fine. So today I I already said me and Barry had been to the bar

40:05Mark Langdon:last night. Yeah, you had a pint of vodka which is not a vegetable. Yeah and then what felt like a pint of rum after that very, very long and it's hard drinking in the US with the pores that they do on the spirits but so I woke up hungover essentially. Okay, understood. Does that set the vegetables back even further does it? It does, yeah. I mean, you know, if Steve Bartlett can't concentrate if you're after a glass of wine then what am i going to be like this has ruined your podcasting this hangover so i uh i did i did what i would always do in those situations and um got a mcdonald's um for breakfast okay so the 100 nut gyros out the window yeah for sausage and egg mcmuffin they don't do double um over here though it's surprising yeah and a disgrace as well um so i had that as a meal of hash browns did i i'd struggled for lunch i had no lunch in um and so the panda express that was erroneously delivered to the apartment yesterday um i ate about half of that so there was chow mein with bits of greenery in it there were bits of greenery there were there were bits and some more orange chicken which we'll discuss philippe who of course could not believe after recording he was like he couldn't go to bed he was so stunned i was completely dressed down yeah he was he was fuming at me um and then i had barry's um spaghetti bolognese so He'll have to tell me exactly what was in it.

41:29And then last night we had tacos. I think there was definitely coriander. Burb a vegetable?

41:34Mark Langdon:I mean, I guess it is. No, and then refried beans, which we... We've established our vegetables. I mean, I can eat refried beans every day if I need to out here.

41:43Max Rushden:There were chopped tomatoes. I scooped them out. Okay. Tomatoes, I find... I can't eat tomatoes. And then there was a big salad on the side, but I noticed you didn't touch that. Presumably there was an onion. What? Oh, there was an onion. Two big red onions.

41:57Mark Langdon:Two big red onions. There you go. It was a nice spaghetti bolognese. I can't compare them because I wasn't here for the first one. But Barry sets a good standard of bolognese. Noted. Thanks, everybody. That'll do for today.

42:10Max Rushden:I think the only difference is mine had a half bottle of red wine in it and yours didn't. Yours was perfectly fine.

42:17Mark Langdon:I mean, I'd say there are other differences, but we don't need to get into this. Thank you for your time, Eslas. We appreciate it. No. Good to be with you guys. Always nice to chat. thank you Barry thank you thank you Mark thank you Mark Football Weekly is produced by Rory Simon and Matt Bentley finally our executive producer is Joel Grove and we'll be back tomorrow

42:37Mark Langdon:this is The Guardian