Before the sun goes down
Normally, soccer players feigning injury is nothing new. This time it is.
For Tunisia players, their goalkeeper slumping to the ground and causing an extended break in play during World Cup warmup games was a precious chance to drink water and eat food for the first time in more than 12 hours.
Ramadan, the holy month that requires Muslims to fast and refrain from drinking or eating from sunrise to sunset, has posed serious challenges for some of the teams in their buildup to the World Cup in Russia. Tunisia had a plan. Twice in recent weeks, goalkeeper Mouez Hassen fell to the ground during games, apparently exaggerating an injury, to allow his teammates to make their way to the sidelines, where backroom staff offered water bottles and passed out containers holding dates.
Water and dates are the traditional Muslim way to break the fast during Ramadan. For the players, it also allowed them to get desperately-needed sustenance having not eaten or drunk the entire day of the game.
Tunisia needed the break during the evening game because the day’s fast ended while they
England is attempting to break a cycle of heartache and humiliation at major tournaments that plunged the birthplace of football to its lowest ebb.
A loss to Iceland in the last 16 of the 2016 European Championship was perhaps the ultimate embarrassment. Or maybe that came when the English endured their shortest World Cup campaign two years earlier whey they were only in contention for eight days.
Before that, there were penalty shootout losses in 1990, 1996, 1998, 2004, 2006 and 2012. And before that, who could forget Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal that denied England in the World Cup semifinals in 1986?
It’s no surprise that the nation’s expectations are low heading to Russia. England coach Gareth Southgate has long been tempering his team’s prospects. Defender Kyle Walker even acknowledged it would be a “miracle” if England won football’s were playing. So, Hassen had to time his ‘injury’ just right – when he was certain the sun had gone down and the players were allowed to drink and eat again. On both occasions in the friendly games against Portugal and Turkey, sunset came early in the second half, leading Hassen to do his thing and the Tunisia players biggest prize this year.
England won the 1966 World Cup, but has only reached the semifinals of a tournament twice since then. What next for one of the underachievers of international football? Encouraging draws in recent friendlies against Brazil, Germany and Italy show the English are heading in the right direction but they have been here before in the run-up to tournaments.
Here’s a closer look at the England team:
Southgate was promoted from England’s under-21 team to become coach of the senior side in September 2016, with the appointment widely viewed with skepticism because of his lack of managerial experience in toplevel soccer.
However, opinions are changing on the former England defender who missed the decisive penalty in a shootout against Germany in the European Championship semifinals in 1996.
He has made brave selection decisions — dropping Wayne Rooney, for starters — and has to seize the chance to refuel.
Tunisia is not the only World Cup team affected by Ramadan. All five of Africa’s qualifiers — Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal and Nigeria— have Muslim players in addition to Saudi Arabia and Iran, who are also in the World Cup.
Two of the highest profile implemented a bold approach that has seen the team adopt a three-man defence and play the ball out from the back as much as possible.
Longtime starter Joe Hart has lost his place in the squad after a tough two years on loan at Torino and West Ham from Manchester City. Jordan Pickford, Jack Butland and Nick Pope now occupy the three goalkeeping spots.
Kieran Trippier and Ashley Young — attacking fullbacks with good delivery and energy — look to be England’s starting wingbacks, so it is the centre-back combination that will be occupying Southgate’s thoughts.
Youthful duo John Stones and Harry Maguire are contenders to start even though the former is fourth choice at Manchester City and has barely played in 2018, while the latter has just three appearances.
England will play with either two or three central midfielders, depending if the team is deployed in a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 formation, and players from Africa — Mohamed Salah of Egypt and Liverpool teammate Sadio Mane of Senegal — are Muslims.
While Cisse also wouldn’t comment in detail when asked about Ramadan and if his Muslim players were fasting, Senegalese media reported their players had agreed not to fast. they are likely to be functional, hard-working players.
It’s a far cry from the days when the country could call upon stars of the Premier League like Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes. Instead, Southgate will rely on selfless players such as Jordan Henderson, Eric Dier, and Fabian Delph, who will keep their shape and allow the wingbacks and forward players to offer a goal threat.
The most straightforward department for Southgate: Harry Kane will start as the central striker, with Jamie Vardy and Marcus Rashford as backups.
Despite a blip in April after returning from an ankle injury, Kane finished the Premier League season with 30 goals for Tottenham.
Having found his form with five goals in his last five appearances for club and country, the 24-year-old is England’s most lethal striker and arguably most important player. Raheem Sterling is expected to line up just behind Kane after his breakthrough season with Manchester City.
The World Cup is set to start and finish with games at the opposite ends of the spectrum.
The lowest-ranked teams at the tournament will meet in the opener Thursday when Russia hosts Saudi Arabia at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, which is also venue for the July 15 final.
The No. 70-ranked Russians got an automatic spot as tournament host and the Saudis, at No. 67, have the lowest ranking of the 31 countries which secured places via qualifying. They’re the longest of long shots to reach the final.
The home team will likely need to win to have a realistic hope of advancing from Group A, and is expected to have Russian President Vladimir Putin in the crowd for support as it bids to end a winless streak of seven games. Only one World Cup host nation has failed to get past the group stage – South Africa in 2010.
The other two teams in the group, Egypt and Uruguay, boast star forwards in Mohamed Salah and Luis Suarez who could cause major problems for the Russia and Saudi defences.
Juan Antonio Pizzi and Russia’s Stanislav Cherchesov bring very different personalities and coaching tactics to the tournament.
Pizzi won the 2016 Copa America title with Chile using an all-action style with constant pressure on the opposition. He’ll struggle to replicate that with a Saudi team he took over after it had qualified for the World Cup.
Cherchesov favours a more defensive approach. Cherchesov, known for his prickly demeanour in interviews, responded to questions about what he’d say to Russian fans who are nervous about their team’s poor form by saying he’s “no psychologist, to go around calming people down.”
Injuries disrupted Russia’s World Cup preparations, with forward Alexander Kokorin and defenders Georgy Dzhikiya and Viktor Vasin sustaining severe knee injuries earlier this year.
That forced Cherchesov into some late shake-ups.
Expect Fyodor Smolov to start up front and for more tinkering with the defence.
Cherchesov abandoned his usual three-man back-line with wing-backs in favour of a fourman defence against Austria last month, but Russia lost 1-0 and failed to register a shot on target.