Hosts might be the first to reach knockout stage
Two wins, eight goals and almost certainly a place in the knockout stage for the first time since the Soviet era. Russia is enjoying quite the party at its own World Cup — and not even the highly anticipated return of Mohamed Salah could slow it down Tuesday at St. Petersburg.
Confounding grim pretournament predictions, the host nation earned a second straight emphatic Group A victory by beating Egypt 3-1. Having already routed Saudi Arabia 5-0, Russia is likely to be celebrating a spot in the round of 16 by Wednesday evening and few could have seen that happening so soon. Russia will clinch a berth if Uruguay wins or draws against the Saudis.
The Russians started the World Cup as the lowestranked team at the tournament at No. 70, but they aren’t playing like it.
Three goals in a 15-minute
span early in the second half did the damage against Egypt, with Ahmed Fathi poking the ball into his own net — the fifth own goal of the tournament — to put Russia ahead in the 47th minute. Denis Cheryshev, with his third goal of the World Cup, and striker Artyom Dzyuba then scored in quick succession before Salah won and converted a consolation penalty in his first game back after 31⁄2 weeks out with a shoulder injury.
Aside from his goal, Salah was quiet in his first World Cup match, much to the dismay of the Egypt fans in the stadium who roared every time their star player’s face flashed up on the big screen and when his name was announced before kickoff.
Japan 2, Colombia 1: Colombia’s Carlos Sanchez offered no explanation for the early red card that put his team a man down for nearly its entire game against Japan, but his coach and teammates backed him after the Group H loss at Saransk.
Sanchez was called for a hand ball in the third minute on a shot that looked bound for the Colombian net. It was the second-quickest red card in World Cup history.
He did not speak to print reporters and did not address the incident in comments to TV Globo.
Shinji Kagawa put Japan ahead on the penalty kick after Sanchez’s red card. Colombia’s Juan Quintero leveled the score in the 39th minute, but Japan took advantage of its numeric superiority to pull ahead in the 73rd minute on a header by Yuya Osako.
“The positive side of this is you can see the team managed to rise to the occasion and managed a draw even though we lost one of our most important players,” Colombia coach Jose Pekerman said. “That’s a very good reaction.”