African teams have another two chances to get on the board at the 2018 FIFA World Cup today. Senegal and Egypt are in action, hoping to change the fortunes of a continent whose teams have lost all their games in the first five days of the tournament.
Tuesday sees the first set of group matches wrapped up, with Group H starting off with Colombia against Japan. It’s an open group, so Senegal will hope to get a good start when they face Poland at 5pm.
Senegal have only played in the World Cup once before, back in 2002, and there’s lots of pressure to live up to the hype of Aliou Cisse’s team.
The second set of matches starts this evening, when Russia play Egypt. The North Africans are hoping for a better performance than they gave in their loss to Uruguay, and there are hopes that Mohamed Salah will be starting this match.
Africa’s woes continued on Monday, when Tunisia lost to England 2-1. There was some controversy about the penalty, but Ferjani Sassi’s conversion at least gave Africa it’s first goal of the tournament. It had cancelled out Harry Kane’s first strike, but the England captain scored the winner in injury time.
But England are not top of the group, Belgium are. A double strike from Man United’s Romalu Lukaku helped them to a 3-nil win over Panama, a performance Spain international Cesc Fabregas thinks will make the Belgians dangerously confident.
Human rights was always going to be a hot issue in Russia. But the first problem FIFA are facing has nothing to do with Russians. It’s Mexico’s fans who are in trouble. FIFA has opened a disciplinary procedure against Mexico after alleged homophobic chants by Mexican fans during their World Cup win over Germany on Sunday.
Mexico fans have long shouted a chant that gay rights groups argue is homophobic at keepers taking goal kicks. But the fans say that’s not how it’s meant.
Mexico’s officials have already faced fines during qualifying, but fans continue to use the chant.
