BHAICHUNG BHUTIA
Who would have thought that Senegal and Japan would play on Sunday eyeing a knockout berth? And that Nigeria would make Iceland melt in the way Argentina couldn’t? This World Cup is writing its own script as it goes along.
What I liked about Senegal’s dismantling of Poland was the brand of football they displayed. It wasn’t overtly physical. What was also striking was how lightly the weight of history sat on Aliou Cissse’s team.
It can’t be easy to get on to a World Cup game 16 years after your last ended in a quarter-final defeat; more so when you are doing it at a stadium where the majority of fans are rooting for the rivals.
But the way Salif Sane and Kalidou Koulibaly reined in the dangerous Robert Lewandowski led to Poland having the worst of starts to their 2018 campaign. A slice of good fortune fetched Senegal the first goal and it was M’baye Niang’s presence of mind that got the second.
But underpinning the performance was discipline and pace. Then, in Sadio Mane, Idrissa Gueye and Koulibaly they have players who can influence a match on their own.
Japan may have been lucky that they were a goal up and Colombia a man down by the third minute but credit to them for how they managed the midfield, especially in the second half. They passed well and exploited the space left by 10-man Colombia.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Japan and Senegal play out a draw simply because it is a result