Key events
17 min And this time, Eustaquio’s corner is perfect, picking out David peeling off, and he sidefoots a volley … a yard or two past the near post. That was a difficult chance, but a chance nevertheless.
16 min Canada win another corner – down the right, pressure building a little.
15 min “To follow up on Travis Giblin’s fun Vegas story,” begins Justin Kavanagh. “A friend of mine, who has less than zero interest in soccer, told me that he turned down his company’s offer of two tickets to the World Cup Final in 1986! My jaw dropped as I thought of watching Maradona at his greatest triumph and almost wept. If that happened this year, you could sell the frickin’ tickets and buy yourself a nice mansion down in Mexico.”
Here’s my story about not using tickets and regretting it, though I did once meet Bobby Charlton on a London-Manchester train. He offered me a lift to Old Trafford and I said nah, you’re alright, a mate’s picking me up.
14 min And there’s some more, Oluwaseyi touching off to David, who slides Millar away down the left. But a heavy touch allows Mbokazi to intercede well, at cost of another corner.
12 min Johnston mooches down the right and squares for Oluwaseyi, but a loose touch ends the move. Canada look the better side on the counter, but so far, both are suffering from a lack of care and precision in their actions. “In their actions”, who am I trying to kid; on the ball.
11 min Buchanan nails Mofokeng with a hard but fair challenge, on which point I’ve really enjoyed a lot of the reffing in the competition so far, physical tackles generally allowed. In particular, I thought Tori Penso did a brilliant job ion the Germany v Ecuador game, especially in the second half, of letting the players compete and the game flow.
9 min Oluwaseyi out to Millar, who feeds down the line for Laryea, and his cross is blocked behind. But Eustaquio’s corner eludes everyone, and again, SA get it forward quickly.
8 min Crepeau goes long for Buchanan down the right, but Mbokazi does well to insert himself between man and ball, seeing it behind for another goalkick. We’ve not seen loads of quality so far, but the intention and intensity seem present and correct.
6 min Yup, SA want to win this, Maseko finding Mofokeng, who finds Mokoena, who shoots from the edge … but Crepeau shovels away easily enough – though had there been a striker following in, he could’ve been in trouble.
5 min SA look more inclined to attack than in previous matches, but when Ocon passes back there’s minor panic … but Williams is there ahead of David to clear.
4 min “Fun little story about Celine Dion, says Travis Giblin. “Years ago I was at work (I’m a physiotherapist, in Canada) treating people with head and spinal cord injuries. I assessed a guy with a head injury who remarked ‘my wife is really annoyed I fell off the ladder as we were supposed to go to Vegas tomorrow.’ I said ‘Really? I’m heading there tonight after work.’ He then offers me their tickets to Celine Dion free of charge which. .. I turned down. I was heading to Vegas with my buddies, we were staying on Fremont (downtown, not The Strip) and had zero plans to go to The Strip. So, yeah, while she’s a Canadian icon she’s not for everybody. That said, when she appeared at the finale of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony she was nothing short of incredible…”
3 min A loose pass from Bombito allows Appollis to attack space in behind Johnston, but a poor touch quickly aborts the attack.
2 min David feeds into Millar, in midfield, who goes wide to Laryea, and when Maseko challenges, Canada go backwards, Mudau conceding a throw deep inside his own half. But it comes to nothing, the ball soon going behind for a goalkick.
1 min Gosh, our camera angle is vertiginous to say the least; it’s like White Hart Lane never left.
1 min Our knockout stages are away!
You can see the tension etched into the players’ faces. They’ve never experienced anything like this before; how will they handle the pressure?
Anthem time…
Our teams are ready … and here they come! Our knockout stages are almost ready to begin, and if they’re of similar drama to the groups, we’re in for a treat; hell, we’re in for a treat regardless. Football, my friends, is unstoppable, undeniable and undefeated.
It’s a big night for Jonathan David, a player lots of big clubs looked at adn passed on before he joined Juve. Can he push himself into the elite? A big performance here would be a statement.
“Talking of Celine Dion,” says Peter Walker, “did you know she had come out in support of farmers by removing all the consonants from her name?”
Badabing!
Tangentially, as I’ve done every time I’ve covered SA, I’m posting a playlist of favourite South African tunes. I’d be shocked if you didn’t find it some of the most thrilling music imaginable – though it fully comes to life in the club, not the headphones.
“Quick note to say that sorry, yes, Celine Dion is an icon here in Canada,” writes Scott Maynard in Yukon, Canada, “especially in Quebec and other French-speaking parts of the country. You may not agree with it, but that doesn’t make it not the case! Suggested reading, ‘Lets talk about love’ by Carl Wilson, which is part of the 33 1/3 series of books on music, and explores the nature of taste in the context of, you guessed it, Celine Dion – as in I hate this music, millions of people love it, what am I missing type thing.”
Ha, I pitched write one of those on Goldie’s Timeless, one of my all-time favourite albums, but someone else had got there before me. Otherwise, no need to apologise, I’m not at all opposed to the principle, just eager to understand the reasons why.
My TV feed has just shown a selection of the best goals so far. I think Promise David’s for Canada against Switzerland might be my aesthetic favourite – but there are loads I’d pick above it once factoring in importance.
Canada, meanwhile, will look to dominate in wide areas, their full-backs supporting the wide midfielders and helping serve the front two. Marking two strikers a man each – is a lot harder for centre-backs than sharing one between them, and I expect that to be the difference in this match.
Anyway, back to our game, where is it? I assume South Africa will sit deep, the two in front of the defence not moving much, especially at the start. But the full-backs will get forward, especially Mudau on the right, with Mofokeng prompting around the fringes of the box and, as the game develops, Mokoena and Sithole will look to move forward, hoping their 4-3-3 wins the midfield numbers-game against Canada’s 4-4-2.
In Tuchel’s defence, I think he’s picked a squad he thinks is best-placed to beat the best teams – by running and powering them off the pitch – but even within that, you need options and variety. Otherwise, teams know exactly how to prepare for you and you’re essentially saying if things go badly – they suss how to handle the formation, say – the problem is still the players, who are replaced like for like.
On UK TV, they’ve been talking about England, noting that DR Congo play a low block. A bit of a problem if your manager has picked a team full of big-space players and seems strangely reticent to use his only real small-space expert. I’m not surprised Thomas Tuchel isn’t into Kobbie Mainoo – he’s picked a squad big on physicality and low on craft – but why take him if you’d rather play Jordan Henderson?
A Canada-related question for you: yesterday, my wife and I were discussing Celine Dion and whether she’s an icon; my wife reckoned yes, I leaned no. So went to the OED, which says: “a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or worthy of veneration.” I guess I need the first arm as well as the first, or we’re letting too many into the category, and I’m not sure she satisfies it; I demand transcendence!
Oh man, my eyeballs are sweating and we’re 45 minutes away from watching the teams come out. Can Stokes play football?
Oh my goodness. Nothing to do with football, but everything to do with humanity: Ben Stokes, what a man. If you’re near a telly with Sky, get it on – it’s montage time.
This is fun:
“A difficult match to call, right?” begins Krishnamoorthy V. “Both are likely to be cautious and hence a 0-0 and extra time looks certain. I only hope this does not go to penalties – I dislike the penalty shootout. It is akin to a coin toss in a way. Let there be positive engaging quality match.”
I fancy Canada, who I think have the greater zest and the better better players, especially as we saw SA freeze against Mexico; I expect them tp attack the situation. But I disagree penalties is a coin toss – it’s a test of technique under awful, wonderful pressure.
Jesse Marsch makes four changes to the side that lost to Switzerland. At centre-back, Moïse Bombito replaces Luc De Fougerolles; in midfield, Stephen Eustaquio is in for Mathieu Choinière; on the left, it’s Tani Oluwaseyi not Ali Ahmed; and up front, Liam Millar is preferred to Cyle Larin.
One change for SA, Teboho Mokoena – for my money, their best player in the first two games, an admittedly subterranean bar – returning from suspension, so Thalente Mbatha drops back to the bench.
Teams!
South Africa (4-2-3-1): Williams; Mudau, Mbokazi, Okon, Modiba Mokeana, Sithole; Maseko, Mofokeng, Appollis; Makgopa. Subs: Adams, Chaine, Cross, Foster, Goss, Kabini, Makhanya, Matuludi, Mbartha, Moremi, Ndamene, Rayners, Sebelebe, Sibisi.
Canada (4-4-2): Crepeau; Johnston, Cornelius, Bombito, Laryea; Buchanan, Saliba, Eustaquio, Millar; David, Oluwaseyi. Subs: Ahmed, Choiniere, David, Davies, De Fougerolles, Goodman, Jones, Larin, Nelson, Osorio, Shaffelburg, Sigur, St. Clair, Waterman.
Referee: João Pedro Silva Pinheiro (Portugal)
Preamble
Being a footballer is the greatest thing in the world, right? We all spend our lives doing something, and how wonderful it must be for that something to be something we love, surfing extremes of emotion with teammates who become family.
But there’s a debt to pleasure, paid by players and those close to them, with childhoods sacrificed, relationships compromised and time disappeared; the game consumes everything, its indigestion somehow passed on to those being eaten. Nights like tonight, though, are what make it all worthwhile, two countries contesting a World Cup knockout for the first time and a moment none who are part of it would have dared dream possible.
There’s a Yiddish word, naches, that roughly translates as deep pride and joy in the achievements of people to whom you’re close; it’s one of the greatest feelings known to humankind, and sometimes, in extreme cases, those of us with no connection to its protagonists, are lucky enough to experience the love. When the teams walk out tonight, we will know it.
Both of them are fortunate to be involved. South Africa were unfathomably dreadful in the opening game and scarcely better in their second, then somehow found enough in their third to snaffle a win, while Canada were also disappointing , a draw with Bosnia & Herzegovina and a defeat against Switzerland bookending a convincing win over a miserable Qatar. That is one way of looking at things.
Another, though, is to say that Bafana Bafana come into this game on a buzz, feeling great about themselves and ready to attack a chance they can’t have expected. Canada, meantime, fired by hosting vibes, have been handed a winnable tie, knowing they’ve enough going forward to exploit it. And for both, this is the opportunity of several lifetimes, the question how, fully cognisant of all it’s taken for them to reach this point, they find, then balance, the composure and devil it’ll take to do it and themselves justice; to launch those already soaring into another dimension.
Chances are, this isn’t the best or most meaningful match we enjoy this week, but goodness me, not many will be as special.
Kick-off: 3pm EDT, 8pm BST, 5am (Monday) AEST