I (and others) had billed this as a matchup of the two worst teams in the tournament. Is Russia not as inept as everyone thought, or are the Saudis even worse than we expected? Good to see our dear friend Vladimir Putin in high spirits, welcoming the adoring crowd to “an open, hospitable and friendly country.”
Tomorrow
7am: Egypt vs. Uruguay (FS1) Still no real word on whether star striker Mohamed Saleh will be available for Egypt. He’s pretty much their only scoring threat (and received over one million write-in votes for president in the recent Egyptian election), so that matters. So it made extra headlines when Saleh was photographed at the team’s training field, smiling and waving with Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov, one of the world’s premier evil dictators, whom you may have seen in his permanent place in the opening credits to John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. Will that hurt his future political chances? Will he play tomorrow against Uruguay (who will likely win anyway)? Stay tuned.
10am: Morocco vs. Iran (Fox) Effectively an early elimination game between these two opposite ends of the Muslim crescent: With Spain and Portugal in the wings, it’s hard to see either team advancing out of Group B without a win here.
1pm: Portugal vs. Spain (Fox) Easily the premier matchup of the first few days: Portugal has Cristiano Ronaldo, and the core of the team that lifted the European Cup in 2016; Spain has all-stars at every position. Unfortunately, Spain also fired their coach yesterday, so that kind of sucks. Julen Lopetegui recently announced that he’ll be taking the head job at Real Madrid after the tournament, which apparently didn’t sit well with the Spanish federation, and likely exacerbated the already bitter schism on the team between the Real Madrid and Barcelona contingent (Gerard Pique and Sergio Ramos, for instance, possibly the best central defender duo in the world, reportedly cannot stand each other). So far, everyone says this won’t make a bit of difference on the field, but you’d expect them to say that, wouldn’t you?
This article appears in June 8 • 2018.