Vinícius Jr. Slams Scotland & Ochoa's Historic 6th World Cup! 🇧🇷🇲🇽 | World Cup Daily #24

[00:00:00] Six matches a day, two matches to see at the same time and to keep notes from. But somehow we keep going while the third round of this group stage has just started. Welcome to yet another episode of FUT IN REVIEW, episode 24 of our World Cup Daily.

[00:00:28] My name is Jon and I'll be hosting today and I'm joined by Mr. Blue himself, Kareem Homer. Welcome back, Kareem. Thanks for having me speak. Thanks for having me back. Yeah, that's what sleep the abbreviation does with you, mate. It does indeed. It's not good. I know we keep complaining about these schedules, mate. But six matches a day is something else. This is one heck of a grind now, right?

[00:00:53] It is a grind. I'm not a fan of increased tournaments, mainly for this reason and for just the level quality at times. So I'm quite glad that we're wandering down to the lesser games now. Yeah, like this was like two things we were afraid of is one is, of course, weaker teams having it and third places going through most of the time, which could lead to an unfair advantage or a lack of level. To be fair, I think most matches have been pretty cool to watch.

[00:01:22] But six matches a day is quite a lot, I think. And that's not even the worst part because off or like they are also played most two of them are played at the same time for obvious reasons. But it's hard to keep track of like yesterday. The first match started at 9pm my time. So 8pm yours, I think. Yep. Then we went into midnight. Then we went into 3am. So we finish off by 5am.

[00:01:49] It is also weird because I forgot to watch. I don't know about you, but I'll try to watch both the matches sort of. So I've got this MacBook on one side, I got the television on the other side. People are texting me. Oh, look at the channel one because they just scored there. Look at channel three. What do you think of this player? And I'm trying to keep notes. I don't know if you've seen them, but I've also tried to keep on notes. But it's hard to keep notes for two matches to watch at the same time and to stay up like even for me.

[00:02:18] Six times two hours of football is a little bit much. Yeah, like sometimes if death one in the footballs clashing, I'll have like the two screens on. But generally, I've just watched one game, so concentrate on it and then watched a game afterwards. So I've been keeping notes as well. And with the lack of sleep deprivation and everything else, my notes aren't very legible. I'm surprised if I understand some of the notes I've written.

[00:02:45] Yeah, it's we've had some we had some matches. So what we do is we go through all the matches, we won't go into all the details because we have trouble like keeping the win 25 or 30 minutes with four matches, let alone, it's going to be one heck of a chance to do that with six matches. So it's going to be highlights. It's going to be, I think, a little bit of looking at the groups, how the groups are looking currently.

[00:03:07] But let's just start, shall we? Yesterday, we had the first groups, which was Switzerland versus this group B, I think Switzerland versus Canada. And at the same time, it was Bosnia-Herzegovina versus Qatar. Did you check out any of those matches live? So I watched the second half of the Switzerland-Canada game live and then caught up with the first half and then watched the Bosnia and the Qatar game later on.

[00:03:34] Such a legend. I actually watched the Bosnia game live while having Switzerland on the second channel. And why would you say? Because a friend of mine is a, well, how do you say? Commentator or presenter for the Dutch national broadcasting company. And he did the matches with Bosnia. So I was like, ah, let's do Bosnia versus Qatar. Let's check that out. Actually, pretty entertaining match to be fair. But I think the real action came from Swiss versus Canada now.

[00:04:03] Yeah. So my decision was Bosnia were winning 2-0. The Canada-Switzerland game was nothing each. So I thought, I thought the Bosnia game was pretty much done. So I thought there'd be more action with the Canada-Switzerland game. And I think the game did for Bosnia and Hisnagor did look good second half wise, but I think I picked the right choice with the drama and the Switzerland-Canada game. Yeah, I think that's a small one to keep updated and keep switching around if you need it.

[00:04:31] We need like a highlight channel where they just switch if something happens, keep it one match and then switch to the other match when something happens. Like they do with last playing round sometimes with football, like on leagues. But I can do a whole show and that we will do about how this is broadcasted and how sometimes the broadcast quality isn't on par with what we need to have. But we'll do a separate show once the group studies are done. We get more time to go into those highlights. So Swiss-Canada ended in a 2-1 win for Swiss, for Switzerland.

[00:05:01] Fargoz scored. I don't know if you have noticed anyone that mentioned him this week somewhere, said you should pay attention to him, but he had a good match, didn't he? Yeah. Lively enough, his finish was really good. Obviously, did somebody say that it was somebody to watch out? I don't think, I don't know. Did they, John? Yeah, it might be me. I think he had a poor season, but I also think he stepped into a really poor team in a bad flow. He says Sevilla, right? Just to get it.

[00:05:31] Yeah, so he started the season at Osberg and he'd been slowly being really well at Osberg. Good standout player in the Bundesliga. Got a move to Sevilla, which we said in our Discord chat, I don't think it was the right move because Sevilla's been really poor for the last three seasons now. But they are a big name in a big league, so I get the appeal. But he is a good player and I don't know if he'll still be there, given his form at the World Cup. No, I doubt that he'll probably make another transfer now.

[00:06:01] Talking about transfers, I think Manzabi, the 20 year old star legend now at Switzerland, is definitely showing himself off this week as well, or this tournament as well so far. So that's one to keep an eye out and he'd probably be making a, might be a massive transfer this summer though. Perfect time to get into form. Perfect. So 2-1 for Switzerland, that means if, and we look at Bosnia-Herzegovina versus Qatar, that ended in a 3-1 result.

[00:06:30] That leads, if you look at the group stage itself, means Switzerland is true with seven points out of three. Canada had four points out of three in a second position. And Bosnia is true with four points out of three as well as the best ranking number three. And there's no way to get behind that. So the three out of this group will go through. Qatar, people were saying that Qatar shouldn't have been this, shouldn't have been there.

[00:06:55] We've had Cotuso saying yesterday that European clubs, I don't think he's biased at all, but should have more spots. And that countries like Qatar, for example, should not even be there. I do think that Qatar put up a pretty good fight. They got one point against Switzerland and they didn't roll over at any of the other matches in my honest opinion. What do you think? Well, they qualified, so they should be there. It would have been nice if we see the bigger names, the bigger stars, but that's not how football works.

[00:07:25] I'm generally not a fan of big competitions and teams getting in through extended places, but they have been good. I've enjoyed watching them. The quality is not that great, but they've at least tried. Like they took it to Switzerland. They tried against Bosnia and Iraq quite similarly as well. I really enjoyed watching them against France because they went for it. So I can see where good Tissue is coming from, but they won it and made it.

[00:07:54] So they're there for a reason. True. Very true. Yeah. And I think the little shout out to the kids from Qatar. I think they have one of the nicest kids, very clean, very good looking. So just a little shout out for that as well. Although they're still very expensive, actually. But let's go there. And a shout out to Afif, player from Qatar. I think one of the standout players. I don't even know where he plays him, I'm quite honest. You know what's on top of your mind? I can't say the top of my head, Diva, no.

[00:08:23] Sorry. No, he surprised me last World Championship. He did now as well. And as mentioned before, if you turn Afif around, it makes FIFA, which is cool, I think. But hey, let's dive into Group C, where Brazil played Scotland and Morocco played Haiti. Let's start with the match Morocco versus Haiti, shall we? Because I think that went a little bit different than I expected. Graham, what about you?

[00:08:53] Before the games had kicked off, I thought it would be a pretty straightforward Morocco win. But given the way that the group had played out, I had said on our previous pod with Chris and Neil about Scotland, that I felt that Scotland had to hammer Haiti to have a good chance of qualifying. The fact that Scotland only beat them 1-0 left Haiti in a place where they could have, if this result was different, sneaked ahead of Scotland.

[00:09:23] So I'm not surprised they went for it and there was a lot of action. Obviously, they'd done really well, Haiti, and they came all their heads high. They came, they tried, they played well. Just unfortunately, Morocco's just got so much quality. Yeah, so Haiti scored the first 1-0, they got the lead. Hakimi equalized to, well, maybe a standout performance, generally speaking, yesterday.

[00:09:48] Isidore scored, I first thought they said Isildur from Lord of the Rings, but it is Isildur. And number 18 scored the 2-1 from Haiti, so they scored twice yesterday. And again, Morocco equalized with the 2-2 from Sabari, who else I'd almost say this far. In the end, Morocco won 4-2, but I think Haiti put up a tremendous fight. It was seriously impressive how they did.

[00:10:14] 2-2 halftime is of course not something you expect when you saw this match the first time. It was Raimi with the 3-2 and I think it was Vachino, just thinking out loud, scoring the 4-2. But in the end, Fassin, Yassine of course scored 4-2. Hakimi an assist, Hakimi a goal. This was Hakimi's match and I think, generally speaking, I don't fancy this Morocco too much.

[00:10:38] I don't think it's such good of a team, but Sabari and I think Hakimi are two standout players who not only could make a difference, but have made a difference so far, didn't they? I'd certainly disagree. I think Morocco will surprise a few more people. I don't hope so. Hakimi and obviously Sabari are the two big guys. But obviously they've got Braham Diaz, who's good. They've got the left winger whose name has escaped me but plays for a real bit.

[00:11:08] This is really good. They're two centre-backs both playing the Premier League to a good level. So I'd reckon obviously they've got Bono and Goal, who's very experienced, very good keeper. Still, depending on the way they draw up, I'd reckon that there could be another shock or two with Morocco if things go their way. Yeah, I think it's fair enough. I only said that because as the current standing is, they will play the Netherlands if everything

[00:11:37] works out on tonight's appearance. So I don't want to hype them up too much. Well, talking about hype, we are halfway through our six games of football now. Your brain needs to rest. So do we. So this is your official Food and Review hydration break. So grab a drink and we'll be right back with Mexico, Scotland, and of course, Brazil. So while you're up, if you are getting value from the show every single day of the World Cup,

[00:12:05] buy us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com slash food and review. It generally helps keep the show going and us throughout the night. And because when everyone else is drinking beer, we have to drink coffee to keep awake and make sure these notes are readable. Our newsletter is also live at foodandreview.com. Free to subscribe, link in the show notes and follow us on Instagram at foodandreview and on TikTok at foodandreviewpodcast. Now back to the show. Kareem, how was your hydration break?

[00:12:33] I thought we might just squeeze these in, in a little break because people are getting used to listening in quarters and a half anyways now. It's better than the hydration breaks and the football. I'll say that. Any technical changes you made throughout this hydration break this time? No, everything kept it the same. It's going well, so no point in changing it. Perfect, perfect. Talking about going well, well, it depends on who you ask because the next match in this group, DC was actually Brazil versus the mighty Scotland.

[00:13:04] Talking about things not working out as I hoped slash expected, Kareem. The Scots weren't really awake when they started this match, were they? No, the mighty gift there was doing a lot of lifting. I didn't have many high hopes. Like I said, I really felt that to start this tournament off well, they had to smash Haïti to at least get the confidence up. Especially in case Morocco is such a good team, Brazil is such a good team.

[00:13:32] The 1-0 win over Haïti was lucky, if I'm being perfectly honest. I just think the confidence was sapped from there. The performance was pathetic in my opinion. So many players, absolutely sleeping, horrible decision making. I could really spend 30-40 minutes of the pod itself just going through everything that was so bad. Don't do that, we only have one hydration break left. No, I'll leave it at that.

[00:13:59] It just wasn't a good performance, but to be honest, I didn't expect much better. I have no faith in Steve Kluck as a manager, to be honest. The team that he picked, I don't think was the right team. So I get all the technical insights and I don't even disagree with you there. But I think it was McKenna, Scott McKenna, who just gifted Vinicius Junior the goal. Yep. And a couple of minutes later, Handry. Yeah, Jack Handry.

[00:14:28] Did the same and Vinicius got fouled for that one. I saw that back five times. I don't see that in, and that you were like Scotland was very lucky that it wasn't just a 2-0 giveaway because I wouldn't have been given a foul for that if I'm honest. Did you? I've seen it given before, but as a Rangers fan we played Dortmund and Morales scored a goal for us where it was called back for the same thing where he was deemed to clip the defender. I think it was Hummels at the time.

[00:14:56] So I've seen it given, but for me, I don't think it was a foul if I'm being honest, but Hendry and McKenna aren't really great defenders. So... No, but this wasn't even defending. This is having a ball at the foot and just, I don't know, zoning out. Yeah. So I was going to say that they're not really good defenders, never mind good attackers or players with the ball. And prior to the tournament, I said losing Billy Gilmour was a bigger miss than most people would probably presume.

[00:15:26] I think people like guys like McTominay that are big and brash and can run about and bully. But Gilmour gives something which Scotland lacks, which is something that can come deep, take the ball, turn even with pressure and play the nice ball forward. So even if you go to the third goal, Andy Robertson wins the ball back after sleeping and then passes it straight back to Brazil, despite two or three different Scotland players telling them not to pass it everywhere he passes it. So it's just one of the things.

[00:15:57] Do you think Brazil is growing in the tournament or is this, you got such great starts because of Scotland, poor focus maybe, that they just autopilot from there? But I both, to be honest. Argentina prove, most teams prove that teams that start on fire don't generally carry that. It's the teams that slowly work into a World Cup, end up going well and doing well and winning.

[00:16:25] So again, Morocco is not a bad side. So the fact that Brazil drew with them, not the great start, but they've rebounded really well and you can only beat who's in front of you. It doesn't matter if Scotland is poor, Brazil has to step up and beat them. So they've done that well enough. So that will give them good confidence to the top of the table and they've got a slightly easier game going forward now. Yeah, the match ended in 3-0 unfortunately for Scotland.

[00:16:53] I think it's a little bit high concern. I saw the XG was 4.46 for Brazil and 1.13 from Scotland. So I suppose 3-0 is actually fair if you compare that to that. The end result is that Brazil ends up first with seven out of three points and the group Morocco second with seven out of three points. Scotland being third but have not qualified yet because they have three points.

[00:17:19] And Haiti, of course, with zero points, but they show the world what they wanted to do, right? Any thoughts? Do you think Scotland will progress or is it too marginal for this? I don't think they will. I said it twice already. I really think that Scotland had to beat Haiti for the goal difference and they didn't. And to be honest, it wouldn't. I don't think it's unfair if they go out because the performances have been rotten.

[00:17:48] There's been nothing, like I said, watching Iraq. Iraq went for France. Yeah. Yeah, it was probably not the best thing to do, but at least they went for it. Haiti went after, obviously, Scotland. They went after Brazil. They went after Morocco. Did it work for them? No, but at least they scored goals. They tried. Scotland's whole thing was sit back and hope to nick a goal. There was two or three chances where McTominay had a free header and they didn't even get them goalwards. They went sideways or backwards.

[00:18:17] So if they go out, there's absolutely no complaints for me. They don't really deserve it, to be honest. And that's come from, there's been better nations, better squads that Scotland have sent into World Cups that haven't qualified. So I think it would be a bit of a, a bit wrong if this bad team that performs so badly sneaks through through a third place gift, unfortunately. It could still happen though, but I think the match versus Haiti made a difference.

[00:18:45] If you win that 3-4, it is. And I think like yesterday's start, you know, I don't even think it's skill, if it makes sense. Right? You just can't give a ball away that easy. And if you get, if you consider the goal like that and two minutes later, Henry does exactly the same. I was actually thinking I was watching a replay and then I'm like, what's happening here? Right? And it showed panic. It shows, it's just a point.

[00:19:11] Like, Vinicius is of course a terrific player, but if you're giving him a free shot on goal from that end, I mean, obviously he'll make, he'll make it right. It just, I mean, I was a little bit disappointed by that. Like if you go in defensively and you should focus like Grasau did, for example, you can still go a long way. This was just a little bit too nice. Cabo Verde do the same, right? They don't have the quality, but they are focused enough to not give anything away, which works. Yeah.

[00:19:40] Gann has showed against England that you can sit back and not concede and you can still get a couple of breaks and try. But, and had to get a penalty to be fair. Yeah. But Scotland had none of that. Like McKenna, I don't know. I still, I've watched that goal. I don't know how many times. And like, there's nobody close to him and he's trying to play a short pass. And I don't see who he's playing a short pass take is McGinn's not looking the right way for it to receive it. And he's yards too far away.

[00:20:09] He's like the halfway line. And McKenna's got his back to it. So same with the Hendry one. And then, like I said, the Robertson one, there's three players telling them to pass it somewhere else. And he passes it into a space between them all where they're like, look, it's just not the pass. It's just, it's not their skills. It's just errors, bad mistakes, mentality, like just terrible from professional footballers. Like I said, I could keep going on with how bad it was. Yeah.

[00:20:37] What's also bad is our timing because we don't have that much time left and we still have two matches to discuss and the baller and the drama and of course, the bottlers. So let's dive into the last two matches, which was in group A where Mexico played against Czechia and South Africa played against Korea, South Korea. Let's start with Mexico. Won two matches already at home. They had to play Czechia and they just simply overruled them, ran over them, demolished them, didn't hold back.

[00:21:07] Three win. And I think the goalkeeper substitution was my highlight there. What do you think? A predictable game. I thought Mexico would be too strong. This Czechia squad's not great. They've left out players that should have game with them. And it's Mexico. They've got quite a really good young squad at the moment and I reckon they'll go quite well. Yeah. I think they could have taken this easy, but they didn't in Mexico. I think that's a smart way to go at it.

[00:21:36] But the other thing is this Czech, they actually beat Denmark in qualification as well. They beat some pretty good team in qualification. Then the selection came in. That looked weird to say the least. And they have not shown up and it's been a, I think, if I'm honest, I think it's a disgrace. How they performed. You can lose for Mexico. That's not true. That happens, right? But this isn't the Czech we were used to.

[00:22:06] Anyway, it's good performance by Mexico. But Joa, six times World Cup, six World Cup appearances as well. So kudos to him. Love that substitution that came out of the roof. I actually didn't realize that, but love that little touch there for home crowd. Mexico is through with nine points, but then we go into the number two because South Africa played South Korea and South Africa won here. I thought I was already sleeping dreaming. What's happening here?

[00:22:34] Doing everything that Scotland should have done, to be honest. They went out to try and win. They knew that getting second place and not relying on a hopeful third place was still in the cards. And they went out and took it. This is what you want to see teams doing, especially the smaller teams that have not the greatest quality or technique or player wise. South Korea were sleeping at the wheel. I think they really underestimated South Africa. The bench sun, which I don't think was a smart decision.

[00:23:04] Similar with Canada. I don't think Canada had done the right thing as well. So they paid the price and credit to South Africa, but they started to walk up quite badly and they've went out the right way to clock back. Yeah, tremendous performance. I think this South Africa team is really poor, if I'm honest. I've been hammering at them for a while now, but starting a match like this and at least try and I applaud them for that. And South Korea had it.

[00:23:33] If you look at quality, there's no way they should have lost this. But there's two things which really stood out for me is South Africa just taking the long shots as well outside of the box, just going for it, trying it. While South Korea was definitely of the order. Let's get the ball into the box and not lose position. And it's not creating too much 10 shots versus four, I think in the first half even. So that shows a little bit of a difference. South Africa, of course, had a horrible first match. A lot of red cards. So we've seen that happen.

[00:24:02] A lot back from this, but that means in this, this tournament standing in Group A in Mexico goes through with, of course, nine points out of three play. South Africa is second now with four points. And that means Korea, South Korea. They're not well out yet, but they're third with also three points. Doesn't look too good for them either, Graham. Nope, not looking good at all. And again, they're another team that can't complain if they fail to go through.

[00:24:32] Yeah. So we'll, we'll find out soon enough if they actually go through, but Jack is at least out now. Six matches done. That leaves us with the baller of the day. Any preference for you? We want to make the baller. I, I wanted to say Ochoa, but I mean, that's not probably fair, right? Yeah. Not fair on actual performance wise. I think there's a few players you could look at Finney and a struggle with how to say his name. I'm glad for Bosnia.

[00:25:02] I love, I love Drebic, I think you said. Yeah. He's just gone back to Leverkusen. I thought he was really, really good from what I've seen. So it's been him if any for me. I could say Hakimi. I could say Hakimi. He had a great performance as well. I forgot about Switzerland. Switzerland player as well again. Vargas. Yeah. So Fargas, but also Manzabi. There's a lot of people we could play in as the baller, but shall we just give it to Vinny today?

[00:25:33] Yeah, why not? All right. Let's give the baller to Vinny. Who's the bottler though? I think, can only be one if I'm honest. So, I've noticed that it's Scott McKenna that we've got here, but he could go the whole Scotland team to be honest. But McKenna, I just, I don't get why McKenna still gets called up for Scotland. I generally don't think he's a good player. In Scotland, he was deemed a great player because of his battles that he had with a ranger striker called Alfredo Morelos,

[00:26:02] which, to be honest, was the highlight of that is just him beating Morelos by kicking him or saying things to him to get Morelos sent off. Like, he's just not a good defender. So, and I guess they just showed it. Yeah, unfortunately, I think we have to go for like, the whole Scottish defence, which sucks.

[00:26:26] I hope they go through still, not only for our listeners, but I think Scotland has shown themselves to have superb supporters joining them. We've seen some highlights from the US as well, where people are very happy to have him. I would love to meet up with them somewhere down the line with us in the Netherlands. Although, I'm not sure how likely that will be with the current state of affairs there. We'll find out. The drama though, we could go several ways with the drama.

[00:26:54] We could go South Africa continuing and therefore South Korea being in doubt of going in. We could say the drama is checked just on the performing and going out. We could say Okchoa making his sixth appearance and the emotions that came with that. Which way you want to go? I think there's a few other ones like the Switzerland-Canada game. Less than the last 10 minutes was hectic.

[00:27:20] Canada really needed the win to go through first and stay in Canada with the fans. But Switzerland just try to hold on themselves to stay first to get that fair. That was great drama. Canada was just throwing everything at it. But, obviously, Haiti getting in front twice and Morocco sort of scrambling but still composed enough to come back. The win again was quite good drama as well.

[00:27:49] Let's go. Just pick any. I think Haiti scoring the goals were cool as well with Morocco, yeah. Yeah, Isidore's goal was phenomenal. Really highlights how good, if you can strike at that ball, it just sails. If you hit the ball on the heart, it just goes. Yeah. And then, obviously, Joseph's goal was brilliant as well. Like, just great play in general. The ball in was brilliant to be in the place.

[00:28:17] So, maybe go for that. Yeah, that's good. I reckon that's a cool shout out. Well, of course, tonight we have Group D, E and F. For six more games, we get the USA, Australia, Turkey, England, and the Netherlands, of course, as well. The highlights, which one are you going to watch live? I think the Netherlands might be postponed already with Thunderstruck's. So, it's going to be a long night. If it is, then I'll probably avoid that.

[00:28:47] I'm just double checking who is outplaying. I'm not... You are, of course, watching the Netherlands, mate. I don't know, see. USA could be interesting. I don't know, pardon me if I quite think so. We got Ecuador versus Germany tonight. Yeah, I think Kursaal versus Ivory Coast could be interesting. Let's go, Kursaal.

[00:29:15] I think that might be in Japan, Sweden. It's another good game. I might watch. Yeah, the interesting part is we can have Tunisia versus Netherlands being postponed due to Lightning, while Japan and Sweden is still ongoing. Yeah. And I think that's just a bit of bad luck to have with it. At 4am or 3am your time, we'll have Turkey versus USA. Turkey's out, but they are hell bound to get some revenge in, I think. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:42] Else I would not fly back to Turkey anytime soon if I were a national player. And it's got Paraguay or Australia, which of course is an important one for both teams as well. I said England, I don't know why I come in here, but it must be the sleep deprivation to it again. Yeah, let's go, Netherlands. If I'm doing the show tomorrow and I have an orange microphone here, you know that it went well. If it's another caller, you might know what's up. If I'm not recording here, it might have ended up poorly.

[00:30:12] But I hope it will play Morocco in the next one when we go to the first. As first in the group stage and since we're already 33 minutes or something in, I'm going to take a wee nap and I'll see you tomorrow. .