Japan leave it late and Germany’s magnificent seven: World Cup Daily

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1:09Hi, Podfans. Max here. Football Weekly is supported by Contentful. Marketers, no matter what pitch you play on, a big wind feels the same. Electric. It's that moment when you read the play before the trend even starts, beat the clock on a campaign with a little help from AI, and connect with customers in real time, like you've trained for it your whole career. that's contentful world-class digital experiences built fast built beautifully create and launch personalized content in an instant across every channel your customers are watching no chaos no limits just open field take your shot at contentful.com

1:48hi pod fans max here barrett here too hello uh we've just watched sweden beach in india 5-1 did you enjoy it? Yes. Were you concentrating? No. Okay. Ayari scored a couple of great goals. It was a weird offside decision but we will analyse it in more detail on the podcast tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this one. Thank you Barry. I'm young. Bye.

2:12Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. Netherlands and Japan come to life in the second half. The Dutch took the lead twice. Everyone was wondering why the Japanese were hoying balls into the box against the Orange Giants and then Agawa rose, it flicked off Kamada and it ended 2-2. Curaçao had their moment, equalising and scaring the Germans for a little while, but then the Germans clicked into gear. Wurz, Musiala, Havertz linked up beautifully, even if the opposition were pretty ragged by the end. Who would ever get beaten 7-1 by Germany at a World Cup? And then Ahmad gives Ivory Coast a late win over Ecuador.

2:41Philadelphia, a sea of Ecuadorian yellow. They had the better chances, hit the woodwork three times, but leave with nothing. We'll look ahead to tomorrow's game, including Spain and Belgium getting their campaigns underway, while Iran, the subject of so much off-the-pitch start on it against New Zealand. There's a bagpipe update, your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

3:01On the panel today, Barry Glendening, welcome. Hello, Max. The Guardian US Soccer Editor, Alex Abnos. Hello. Hi, Max. And car park aficionado, Ben Fisher. Nice to see you, Ben. Hi, Max. Nice to see you too. Very excited to see your thoughts on valet parking in the giant cars of Los Angeles, but we won't lead with it, if that's okay, Ben. That's fine. Okay, let's start then in Group F, along with Sweden, Tunisia. As we said, it's playing after we're recording. So we don't know the score. So our apologies to the Swedes and the Tunisians who listen to this. But the Netherlands 2, Japan 2. And sort of Barry, the opposite of Brazil-Morocco, I thought.

3:32A pretty cagey first half. And then the second was great.

3:35Max Rushden:Yeah, I think the first half of this game, it was topped and tailed by excellent performances by children. Oh, yes. As the camera panned along, the Netherlands mascots during the national anthem, the first little girl in the line flicked double V's and stuck her tongue out I thought that if I was thinking if that was my daughter I'd simultaneously be appalled and really really proud and then shortly before half time the camera cut to a woman in the crowd who had a small child in her lap and he was fast asleep and I think fair enough fair enough yeah the Dutch dominated the first half. Daniel Mallon had three pretty good chances that went to waste.

4:24Max Rushden:Yeah, it wasn't great first half, but the game sparked into life in the second half, certainly. Virgil van Dijk, who had a kind of Virgil van Dijk-y game in that he's starting to look a bit slow and suspect at the back, but he scored a brilliant header. Yeah, he had to sort of watch it in like a putt. Yeah. It went so slowly. Then the Japanese equalised with that Keito Nakamura shot in the turn. which fizzed into the corner Christensia Somerville put the Dutch ahead again and then the Japanese scored with a brilliant header Gawa scored it took a nick off Kamada on its way and I don't think Kamada knew much about it but I would say the Japanese would be delighted with that draw the Dutch will feel they left two points out on the field and I think it's entirely their own fault there's a touch of the Liverpools of the arsenals about them the way they just play the ball side to side and in that there's quite a lot of Liverpool in them doing that there is yeah and that horseshoe passing pattern around the edge of the box to no great effect and then when they went 2-0 up Ronald Koeman decided right we'll try and hang on to this he brought on another central defender in Nathan Ake and Japan duly scored with a header at a set piece yeah and actually the commentary and I was agreeing with completely, Alex, were like, why are Japan putting the ball in the ball?

5:50Look at the Dutch players. You know, they had, you know, Van der Ven, Van Dijk, so many. Are they the tallest people on earth? Yeah, sometimes the commentators say things and you just find yourself being like, yeah, why are they doing that? And I was in complete agreeance and I didn't understand it either. And then that just shows how much we know about football because that is exactly how the Equalizer came a couple things stood out to me from this game which i watched most mostly on my phone while stand uh sitting in a parking lot waiting to get let into sofi for the iran match day minus one press conference uh one of which was that i was actually kind of fearing that the second half would end up being very much like the second half of morocco brazil yesterday i had kind of assumed that maybe they would decide that they were happy with the point uh and that is not what happened at all, and that was very, very welcome development to me.

6:45The other one I would point out is that Darren Fletcher was on the call for this game on Fox, and he just had a couple really delightful, very forced interjections of Americanism into the call, one of which was he called the stadium, they're playing in Dallas, Dallas Stadium, what is colloquially known among us Americans as Jerry World, after Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys. At various points, he called it Jerry land, which is just not something that would ever be said. And it was just kind of funny. The other thing was that I believe his exact quote, I took down this. He said about a pass that that was the best pass since Dak Prescott to CeeDee Lamb in week seven against the Washington Commanders.

7:28So clearly something he had written down in front of him. Is it an accurate thing? I mean, I don't recall that pass. You know, I have not had time to go back and look at week seven Cowboys versus Commanders highlights. But as soon as I do, I'll report back and let you know how accurate it was. Jerryland is a popular touring tribute band that plays the soulful grooves of the Jerry Garcia band. I can see how you would get them confused.

7:51Max Rushden:And Jerry World, interestingly, is a$1 billion stadium that was built without anyone noticing that at the time when the Dallas Cowboys are going to be playing in it, the sun will be shining directly in their eyes. Come on. What's Jerry thinking? And when they pointed this out, they were just like, hey, Jerry, could you maybe put up some curtains? He said, no, we built it this way. It's already built. That's just how it's going to be. And so it is. Don't mess with Jerry. What did you make of this, Ben? Well, sort of alluding to what Barry was getting at earlier with maybe not being able to take chances or being a little bit wasteful and not having that cutting edge in the final third.

8:31just feels like they have the same issues Netherlands as they've had for a few years now I remember being in Qatar and it was the same kind of you know who's gonna who's gonna be that number nine who's gonna be the killer in front of goal and just looking today obviously Donio Marlon has been a amazing player for Roma didn't work at Aston Villa but moves to Roma and absolutely ripped it up so yeah I think just be interesting who gets that gig kind of going forward obviously they've got options um brian broby gacpo cliver different different players of course very course yeah and that was the thing in katar it was like he was this sort of superhero weirdly but it feels like they're kind of embarrassed to use him so it'd be interesting

9:09Max Rushden:what what uh kuman does going forward yeah broby well when when brian broby broby broby came on i texted wilson immediately with my excitement because in the previews he was talking about you know getting it launched to broby and very course and he wrote will he be the first of five sunday on players to win a game at this World Cup and then Japan equalised straight away. So no is the answer. I thought Somerville looked bright, didn't he? Yeah, he only recently got called up to the Dutch squad. I think this was only his third game, so the previous two being warm-ups. He looked incredibly lively.

9:44Max Rushden:I mean, he wouldn't have had to do much to stand out because their main tactic seemed to be to get the ball to Cody Gakpo and then hope he would do what Cody Gakpo does, which is not beat his man, cut inside anyway, and then either send in a delivery or try and curl the ball inside the far post. So Somerville did bring a lot to the party. It was news to me that he was a new Dutch acquisition. I always presumed he was Scottish and the son of Bronski beat singer Jimmy. me the kit is very orange Alex I mean I don't know if that I mean I was expecting orange but like almost is it that much more orange than it usually is I don't know I think it's it's too orange too orange yeah and I think if FIFA clamping down on various teams for kit related issues I think they might be having a word with the Netherlands that their kit is too orange too luminous because it's quite blinding on television if you're watching on television.

10:51Max Rushden:I don't know what it's like in the stadium. I don't know. I really don't know. It felt like the normal Netherlands orange to me. You're younger than us, are you? Maybe. Maybe it's just we're getting old and you're squinting at the TV. I remember in 2002 obviously the Netherlands didn't make that World Cup, but I think if they had, they would have probably had an orange that was like slightly more, like everybody's colours were slightly off in that World Cup. Maybe it would have been more PG in that one. anyway to group he think Germany 7 Curacao 1 you know Germany did blow Curacao away but Alex they had their moment Curacao had that moment and at that time you were like oh and you know I made a noise and I thought and they scared them for a bit yeah I said yesterday on this show that I thought that they were capable of getting a result and for about 20 minutes there however long it was I felt like maybe I'm on the verge of being considered a football genius yeah and then And yeah, not so much.

11:45But I really did enjoy those 20 minutes. And honestly, the whole game, you know, there's no debating about the level of quality and the difference in quality between Curacao and Germany. I think they showed it. But the reason you watch the World Cup is for those sorts of moments, even if they're fleeting, even if they only happen for a little bit of time. And it's not as if Curacao didn't, you know, totally fell apart and just stopped trying or anything. They were playing. They were doing the best that they could. It's just Germany is that much better than them. So I'm happy that they had their moment.

12:14I'm happy that the Curacao fans that were in attendance had a chance to party and show what they're all about. And yeah, it felt like a fair result, though. Nick Ames was there writing Curacao journalist. Went absolutely crazy in the press box here when that went in huge beams all around. He felt an incredible moment. It was just brilliant.

12:33Max Rushden:Yeah. Levano, come and ciao, was the goal scorer. He will go down in history. he'll never have to buy a pint in Curaçao again. Or a pint of Curaçao in Curaçao. It's quite heavy if you think about it. That's the blue stuff. It is, yeah. I wouldn't drink a pint of it now, I have to say. Not even me. But it's an incredible thing just for them to score at a World Cup and it's something they'll never forget. Like I always remember Ireland's first goal at a major competition was Ray Houghton against England in Stuttgart in Germany in 1988. No one who saw that, who's Irish, will ever forget it. And this would be a similar thing for Curaçao, a country with a population of 178 ,000 or something.

13:26Max Rushden:It covers 170 square miles. It's an incredible thing. And obviously, yeah, they went on to get battered, but I thought they did really well. I think Alexander Seferin, the UEFA president, has been, I wouldn't say complaining, but he has said that this expanded format is going to lead to real mismatches. And there are teams in the tournament, he said, that would not have won a single game in European qualifiers. And he's probably right. Curacao probably wouldn't have won a game in European qualifiers. But they have qualified. They earned their place here. They're obviously only in the World Cup because Mexico, Canada, and the USA.

14:10Max Rushden:Yes, that's the one. They didn't have to play qualifiers, so that opened up a couple of new spots. They got in by the skin of the teeth. Fair play to them. They scored a goal against Germany. Lots of teams don't score against Germany. There was a lot of social media chatter going around about various cities in the U.S. that have the same population as Curacao. And for some reason, the one that jumped out at me that I had been laughing about all day is Macon, Georgia. Macon, Georgia. Yeah, 39 German cities bigger than Curaçao. There we go. I mean, from the German point of view, Ben, like, they did look good, right?

14:41We, you know, it's only Curaçao, but some of their movement, like the touch of, like, Havertz and Witts, they have these players that have such glorious balance. Yeah, they did stitch together some really nice moves. I thought, I just love watching Jamal Masiala. He's just an amazing player, just glides up the pitch. But as you say, they've got loads of talent. Leroy Sané as well, good to see him. I personally thought it was a real shame when he left Man City. I love watching him, just the way he attacks, obviously so raw, so fearless really in the way he goes about it. But yeah, lots of really good play from Germany.

15:19And I think because of the Curacao moment, maybe that will get a little bit lost. I mean the scoreline is obviously emphatic but I think actually because they had a bit of a scare they had that was it going to be them that's going to be on the the end of this first real major shock at the tournament actually as you say they played really well really in the game and I don't think they'll be too bothered at the fact that Curacao had that moment ultimately so yeah really impressive performance Do you want to pick out your favourite goal from the seven Barry? No Okay I'll pick out thanks so much for your input on that i'd pick out nathalie nathanael browns who i was really impressed with i didn't really know a lot about it in place for frankfurt probably about to be hoovered up by by munich according to archie but he thought he looked really good down the left i thought alex yeah he was uh on the radar of the u.s uh being uh being a german u.s dual national i think we were only mildly uh upset to lose out on him and i say mildly because he plays left back and we have quite a good left back in Anthony Robinson on our team.

16:23But I agree, he was really, really great against Curacao. And he played against the US as well in a pre-World Cup friendly, looked good there, just has a great attacking dynamic, good balance to his play. And yeah, really bright future going forward, I think. Undav is a very useful player to come off the bench as well, but has 10 caps for Germany, 7 goals, 4-4. He set up Brown's goal.

16:44Max Rushden:He's goal and two assists, I think. It's difficult to read too much into any of the performances against such limited opposition. But I suppose what you can read into is the players that didn't get a run out in this game are probably the ones that we won't be seeing much of as the tournament progresses and Germany play better teams. Yeah, I think you're right. Did Julian Nagelsmann change his outfit? in this. Something he does apparently quite a lot. I didn't see that. Well he was wearing like a bowling shirt for the first half. I didn't notice that he changed. I think he went from he either went from beige to dark or dark to beige as the game went on.

17:31Which I sort of don't, he sort of feels a bit like Eurovision or something you know where the host is suddenly in a different, a totally different outfit. Why does Julian Nagelsmann need to but I mean like I'm all for it. he does things differently though doesn't he was it now was when he was on the skateboard training and things so he doesn't care yeah he should come out to the dugout in one of those things in a different shirt he just put it all together yeah or like does he change more for extra time like penalties we'll have to find out talking of that makes i just wonder around the uh the goal obviously the the curacao moment then we had the the break yeah hydration break and i don't know really how i feel about it because of the golfing teams and quality but did that kind

18:12Max Rushden:of impact uh their momentum and i do think it came at very much the wrong time for curacao i'm not sure it would have made a great difference in the cosmic scheme of things but it is yet another reason to in an air con stadium in an air con yeah lars is making a point on twitter yes if it is air con hydration breaks yeah it doesn't seem you need that and it does seem like i mean i watched this on itv actually and uh seb hutchins and andrew townsend who were very good but it was nice not having the adverts because it does at least feel like you're part of the game it felt more like oh someone's injured or whatever it's sort of less obvious than you know christian puttis is massive head trying to sell me a credit card you know or whatever but it's weird though because it canada um the other day in toronto at the game you had canada down one nil you know everyone feeling a bit sorry for themselves and then over the speakers whitney houston want to dance with someone blaring and jesse marsh is trying to get into his players saying, you know, we go again and whatever.

19:10Something doesn't feel right about it. It doesn't sit well. Yeah, I think so. And Lars was making the point that, you know, football's been two halves since 1862. And just almost, just like that, it's four quarters and it's just how you just really hope that it's this isn't the thin end of the wedge. And it's all down to

19:26Max Rushden:one person. Yeah. A great guy. I mean, I suppose he was scared of the heat, right? No, he wasn't. Okay. Well, people were. No, they were. Okay. no one objects to hydration breaks if hydration breaks are required I totally agree with you you can honestly think that Gianna and Fantino introduced mandatory hydration breaks throughout 104 different games because he was concerned about player welfare no, well I'm not sure he's concerned about much apart from himself, yeah no further questions that'll do for part 1, part 2 we'll begin with the Ivory Coast victory over Ecuador Hi Pod fans, Max here, Barry's here too Hello Football Weekly is supported by Hotels.com Now Barry, question, when you're booking a hotel do you use Hotels.com?

20:18Actually you're probably just going to say I don't know, producer Joel does it I don't know, producer Joel does it Well, I think you should give it a try for yourself Obviously it's a massive summer of soccer and loads of our listeners will be travelling to watch the tournament and needing to book somewhere great to stay So it's good to know that when you're a Hotels.com member you can save up to 20 % on hundreds of thousands of hotels. Plus, you earn rewards on every stay, so each trip you take helps pay for your future trips. Just use those rewards like cash, and importantly, there are never any blackout dates.

20:46What's a blackout date? Well, it's a date where you can't use travel rewards. Frustratingly, usually on or around major holidays or other peak travel periods. But there are no blackout dates with Hotels.com rewards. Superb. Yes, so next time you're booking somewhere to stay, just book it at Hotels.com. Hotels.com, it's all in the name.

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21:47Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Ivory Coast 1, Ecuador 0, Philadelphia. I mean, the ground looks amazing, right? The stadium looks great. It was a sea of yellow. Just so many Ecuadorian fans. Barry, I think you had this as your game of the day yesterday. and Alex and Ben were at the Iran press conference so it's all on you this, Baz.

22:06Max Rushden:Yeah, I mean it was disappointing I have to say a bit of a let down. We've just been talking about hydration break why don't we just call them drinks breaks? You can, you can. Why do three syllables when one is enough? That's what kind of drink it is. We've just been talking about drinks breaks and I wonder, I fear for that old cliche about the game of two halves because that's going to fall by the wayside. This was a game of a quarter, another quarter, yet another quarter and another quarter. I was disappointed with this. I'm not sure Ivory Coast deserved to win. I think both teams were more than happy to play for a draw and Ivory Coast were lucky enough to nick it at a time with a very good goal from Ahmed Diallo and we all know how good he can be on his day but it was a decent 0-0 at half time entertaining Ecuador hit the post twice Ivory Coast had a shot saved Bazumana Touré had a decent effort saved and then in the second half Ivory Coast hit the crossbar so the same crossbar got rattled three times.

23:25Max Rushden:Diamande had been playing on the right for the Ivory Coast for to no great effect in the first half second half he was moved to the left so Diala could come on he was starting to get decent crosses in but then um Ecuador moved one of their centre backs to right back and he sort of snuffed out Diamandis uh good work but yeah in the end it was the second half was not good it it was nowhere near as good as the first Ivory Coast nicked it in the second in Nevada time. Yeah. And John Yeboah hit the bar. And there should be a law that if Yeboah hits the bar, the ball goes in. He was really, he's got some left foot on him.

24:03Max Rushden:Yeah. Yeah. Is he any relation? No. No. No, none at all. I will just say about the Diallo winner, we were actually able to watch the very, very end of this game in the cab on the way over here. So we did see the winner. I was really impressed at the way that he took that with one touch. Given the flight of the ball, the pace at which it came in, I couldn't really read the spin on it on my phone in the back of the car, but it must have been difficult to get on again with one touch in the place that he was in the box and still tuck it into the bottom corner really really good goal tomorrow's games then we're recording before sweden tunisia this evening so if it's a belter we'll talk about it tomorrow regardless so tomorrow spain cape verde belgium egypt saudi arabia uruguay and iran new zealand and both of you've been at the iran press conference today and you'll be at the game tomorrow i mean press conferences aren't always fascinating ben but this one presumably might have been yeah no it was it was interesting packed room really really busy as you may expect the dynamic was interesting because i actually went to the team hotel um this afternoon morning when um iran arrived from mexico flying in what 24 hours or so before the game um which obviously is interesting in itself not being based as we know another episode of this kind of weirdness and everything that feels wrong really about um their participation in terms of the way it's been handled uh by fifa by the us ultimately the visas the just the whole um yeah the way it's been handled near the hotel was quite it was quite another reminder really really heavy police presence sniffer dogs around drones mobile surveillance some protesters um being talked to by the police once or escorted away the hotel i believe was kind of emptied for they protesters who are iranian protesting against the iranian regime yeah so they they're kind of anti the iran team which again i was saying to alex earlier it's this interesting dynamic because you have kind of a ran v the us to a degree you have a ran v fifa then you have a ran v iran sure in their own um people um and at the press conference i mean and the weird thing with this is that aspect of it is not new right so that's just a continuation but it is a quite sobering reminder of of that backdrop when you're there i was in qatar a few years ago and it was carlos quiros getting bombarded with all the understandable questions.

26:18And it was kind of the same story today. Mehdi Tarimi saying, you know, the backdrop is everything that is against what FIFA kind of preach, really, in terms of peace and joy and, you know, this kind of idea that all the nations come together. It's one big happy family. And as we know, it's not, and Tarimi made a good point. It's not even just Iran. You know, we've seen, he actually didn't name check the referee, but he alluded and referenced that, that incident, obviously Omar Artan, who's denied access. So, yeah, it was interesting, quite lots of different aspects to it. But I think it was another reminder really of actually just how kind of bonkers it is that we've got to this point on the eve of their first game.