Key events
The Guardian’s biggest brains have put them together as they ponder some of the biggest questions in World Cup history.
Get in the mood for the quarter finals with some stats.
From xG to sprints, there is something for everyone.
David Smith
Andrew Giuliani, head of the White House’s World Cup taskforce, has defended Donald Trump’s lobbying of Fifa to lift the suspension of US player Folarin Balogun for Monday’s game against Belgium.
The US president claimed that Brazilian referee Raphael Claus, who showed Balogun a red card in the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina, was “a little bit suspect, if you check his past”. This was apparently a reference to a match-fixing investigation by Brazil’s senate in 2024 that examined how referees were assigned to games but did not accuse Claus of wrongdoing.
England defender John Stones was proud of his injury prank that caught out boss Thomas Tuchel during the celebrations of Sunday’s historic win over Mexico.
Stones teamed up with midfielder Declan Rice to dupe Tuchel into thinking he had injured his shoulder in the dressing room. The German, who had just seen Jordan Henderson go to hospital with a wrist injury suffered after the match, shot a worried glance only for the centre-half to break out into a dance.
Tuchel went up to hug and laugh with Stones in a clip that has been viewed almost 40 million times on X.
Jokingly asked how his shoulder was feeling, Stones said in the latest episode of Lion’s Den: “It’s feeling better now, it’s feeling better – it has its ups and downs. I tried to keep a straight face as I was doing it because I saw he (Thomas) was concerned and thinking, ‘has he actually hurt himself?’. Especially after what Hendo (Henderson) had just done outside, he didn’t know what was going to come but it was good vibes in there. I didn’t think it would get that much traction to be fair.”
Stones was encouraged by team-mate Elliot Anderson to use the dance as a celebration if he scores in the remainder of the tournament, but he promised a new move. “I’ve got another one coming,” he said. PA Media
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Krishnamoorthy emails: “Good morning. Yesterday felt like the first day after MD 38. Did not know what to do in the evening. If reports are to be believed Argentina / Messi voodoo dolls are the number one items on the online shopping platforms in Egypt.”
I had a very peaceful night, it was nice.
Osasu Obayiuwana
Morocco are looking to create more history, which would take their greatest ever shock.
double quotation mark Over the past six decades, Morocco have achieved several performance milestones for Africa at the World Cup. The first country to qualify directly, for the 1970 finals in Mexico, they returned in 1986 and became the first team from the continent to make the last 16, then made that impressive semi-final run in Qatar four years ago.
Even if the Atlas Lions fail to match their 2022 performance, by losing to France on Thursday , they have made tournament history as the first African team to reach the quarter-finals at successive World Cups.
We shall begin properly by looking ahead to France v Morocco. We must all hope that we are not talking about the match officials come full-time because that would be rather tedious.
Meanwhile, Rob Draper has looked into Michael Olise’s background to find out how he went from Hayes to the world stage.
double quotation mark “We were playing Sparta Prague in the European Under-21 Cup,” Flanagan says. “I got there at half‑time. Michael was about 17 and on the bench. I sat in front of [the former Crystal Palace and West Ham player] Hayden Mullins, who used to work for us and who I got on well with. Michael came on with 17 minutes to go. Within five minutes Hayden leaned over to me and said: ‘Who the fuck is that?!’ I just started laughing. And Hayden said: ‘Come on then, tell me, where did you find this one?’ So I explained the story …”
Collina defends World Cup refereeing
Fifa refereeing chief Pierluigi Collina defended the officiating in Argentina’s 3-2 victory over Egypt in the World Cup round of 16, dismissing allegations of bias and saying match officials operated with complete independence.
In an interview published on inside.fifa.com on Thursday, Collina said criticism of referees was part of football but he condemned the questioning of the officials’ integrity after Egypt complained about the officiating following the defeat.
“Constructive discussion about decisions will always be part of football, but unfounded allegations have no place in our sport,” Collina said. “Nobody can question the integrity of the Fifa World Cup match officials … Nobody can claim that Fifa refereeing can be influenced by anyone, not even by the Fifa president (Gianni Infantino).”
Egypt exited the tournament but claimed they had been treated unfairly after Argentina overturned a 2-0 deficit to snatch victory with a stoppage-time winner from Enzo Fernandez.
Coach Hossam Hassan alleged after the match there may have been pressure on the referee to keep Argentina in the tournament. And the Egyptian Football Association said “several key incidents raised serious concerns and left profound questions about the consistency and fairness of decisions that directly influenced the course of the game.”
Egypt argued that Mostafa Zico’s second-half strike was incorrectly ruled out for what it described as a non-existent foul in the build-up. Egypt were also incensed that a challenge on Mohamed Salah was not penalised moments before Argentina launched the move that produced the winning goal.
Collina said VAR had correctly recommended overturning Zico’s goal after identifying a foul by Marwan Attia on Argentina defender Lisandro Martinez during the attacking possession phase. “We believe that a foul is a foul,” Collina said. “Regardless of whether the foul appears ’obvious’, if the referee did not see it on the field of play, the VAR can intervene.”
Collina also defended the decision not to award Egypt a penalty before Argentina’s winner, saying both the referee and VAR judged the contact between Salah and Julian Alvarez to be “normal football contact”. “Stepping on an opponent’s foot is a foul, whereas a defender who touches the ball first and then makes normal football contact has not committed a foul,” he said. Reuters
Preamble
As the Flight of the Conchords once said: “It’s business time.”
The elongated tournament has needlessly been dragged out but it finally feels like the competition has begun in earnest. A few big boys have gone, a few more have been given scares and we are left with eight of the elite.
The first quarter-final is France v Morocco, which feels like fitting way to kick things off. Didier Deschamps’s side have looked the best in class throughout the tournament, even if they did have to suffer to beat a miserable Paraguay side.
Morocco got an easier ride against Canada, which was a fair reward for knocking out Netherlands. This is a huge step up in quality for the Moroccans, who lost to the French in the semi-finals four years ago. On their way to the final four they sent Spain and Portugal parking, so will not be afraid on this occasion.
There will be plenty more aside going on in the USA, which we will keep you abreast of.
