What matters? What’s next
Focus of France, Denmark set on knockout stage
MOSCOW — This World Cup hasn’t been particularly kind to the favorites.
Germany was stunned by Mexico in its opener and entered Wednesday in danger of exiting the tournament in the group stage for the first time. Spain stumbled to two draws in group play and Brazil needed a pair of goals in stoppage time to beat Costa Rica, which doesn’t have a point here.
Then there’s France. Les Bleus haven’t lost in Russia but they haven’t exactly won over many critics either — especially Tuesday, when they settled for a scoreless draw with Denmark in a game neither team seemed especially eager to play.
“If you look at what Spain has been able to do, or Germany, they’ve had a number of difficulties. It’s complicated for everyone,” French coach Didier Deschamps said. “It’s one of the characteristic of this particular World Cup.”
France came into Tuesday’s match having already qualified for the second round of a World Cup still looking for someone to take charge; all it needed was a point to win Group C. Denmark didn’t even need that much. With Peru beating Australia in the other group finale, the Danes would also go through no matter what they did.
So they didn’t do much, spending part of the second half passing the ball backward, drawing jeers from many in announced crowd of 78,011 at Luzhniki Stadium.
“What we wanted tonight was to get into the round of 16 and be top of the group,” French midfielder N’Golo Kante said through a translator. “This is what we’ve managed.”
For Denmark, a spot in the second round is a breakthrough. The Danes, who haven’t gotten that far in a World Cup since 2002, will play Group D winner Croatia on Sunday.
“Our goal was to progress to the last 16,” Danish coach Age Hareide said. “We had a tough group. It was one of the toughest groups, I believe. The team that only got three points, Peru, perhaps played the best in our group.”
For France, which will play Lionel Messi and Group D runner-up Argentina on Saturday, much more is expected. Four years ago the team made it to the quarterfinals in Brazil, losing 1-0 to eventual champion Germany. And in 2016 it reached the final of the European Championships, taking Portugal to overtime before falling.
Nine players from that Euro team came to Russia as part of a French roster that is loaded. With Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud up front, Paul Pogba and Kante in the midfield and captain Raphael Varane on defense, Deschamps’s team has as good a spine as any team in the tournament.
As a result, anything less than the semifinals in Russia would be a failure.
Yet one-goal wins over Australia and Peru and a lackluster draw with Denmark does not inspire confidence.
Not to champion worry, said Deschamps, a World Cup in 1998. In the knockout round, everything starts over.
“There’s a second phase. A second competition that is going to start,” he said.
“... We’ll be humble, but ambitious as well in order to get to the next stage.”
In a World Cup in which the favorites have done little more than hold serve —at best — in group play, humble and ambitious may just prove to be a winning combination.
If not, it could be a long time before France is in this position again said Willy Sagnol, a World Cup veteran who worked with many of the players on this year’s team when he was as sports director for the French soccer institute.
“If we don’t make it this year,” he said “we might have to wait another 10 years to have the capacity to win it again.” Croatia 2, Iceland 1: Fielding a side filled with reserves, Croatia ended Iceland’s first ever Cup with the win in Rostov-on-Don.
Milan Badelj crashed a volley against the bar, and moments later scored for Croatia in the 53th minute, sprinting into the area to fire a bouncing shot past goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson.
Iceland equalized with a penalty shot taken by Gylfi Sigurdsson in the 76th minute after substitute Dejan Lovren carelessly handled the ball. But Ivan Perisic punished a defensive error to make it 2-1 at 90 minutes.
Argentina 2, Nigeria 1: Just in time, Lionel Messi and Argentina showed signs of life.
Messi scored an exquisite 14th-minute goal to give the two-time champions the lead in St. Petersburg, but it wasn’t until Marcos Rojo’s 86th-minute strike that Argentina was assured of a place in the round of 16.
Victor Moses scored a penalty in the 51st minute for Nigeria, putting Argentina in danger of being eliminated without winning a match in Russia.
It took an unlikely goal by Rojo to save Argentina.
Peru 2, Australia 0: Andre Carrillo and captain Paolo Guerrero each scored to power already-eliminated Peru in Sochi.
Australia could have advanced to the round of 16 with a victory and a Denmark loss in the other Group C match, but neither result went its way.
Associated Press contributed