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Key events
36 min: André-Frank Zambo Anguissa, the Napoli player, a revelation there, especially to those who remember him at Fulham, has an injury. He soldiers on, but looks to be playing through the pain barrier. His club coach Luciano Spalletti must be looking on in agony.
34 min: All credit, too, to N’Koulou for his adept flick for the Cameroon goal.
32 min: Talking of keepers, Epassy almost fumbles the ball then holds it as Mitrovic lurks with intent.
30 min: It came against the run of play, though it was well-worked, and Serbia paid for being so lax. Every Cameroon squad member came on to celebrate. Though was Onana one of them?
Goal! Cameroon 1-0 Serbia (Castelletto, 29)
Rigobert Song looks even more disgruntled on the sidelines but his team get an unforced corner from Serbia. And opportunity knocks! The ball is headed back across goal and Castelletto knocks in, reading the flight of the ball, staying onside and poking in! Serbia went to sleep!
27 min: Still no real pattern of play but Serbia look more likely. Tadic lays the ball centrally to Mitrovic who swings and misses.
25 min: Yellow card for N’Koulou for a facepalm on Zivkovic. It looked a bit soft, accidental. Serbia make nothing of the free-kick when Tadic smashes it over everyone.
23 min: Permanent Manchester United target Sergej Milinkovic-Savic is fouled in midfield. He was always seen as an alternative to Paul Pogba.
20 min: Serbia get the corner clear when Kunde again has a dig from distance. Cameroon are pressing high now, which may open space up elsewhere, and almost does as Serbia go down the other end and force a corner. The ref meanwhile seems to have lost his headset and armband.
Here’s your team for today by the way. And you’d need a minibus for this lot.
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Referee: Mohammed Abdulla Hassan (UAE)
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Assistant Referee 1: Mohamed Al-Hammadi (UAE)
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Assistant Referee 2: Hasan Al-Mahri (UAE)
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Fourth Official: Ma Ning (CHN)Reserve Assistant Referee: Shi Xiang (CHN)
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Video Assistant Referee: Nicolas Gallo (COL)
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Assistant Video Assistant Referee: Juan Soto (VEN)
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Offside Video Assistant Referee: Ezequiel Brailovsky (ARG)
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Support Video Assistant Referee: Leodan Gonzalez (URU)
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Standby Assistant Video Assistant Referee: Gabriel Chade (ARG)
19 min: Mbeumo whips the ball across goal and that was begging to be hit. And yet nobody there. Then Milinkovic-Savic is asked to make a save from Kunde. Chances at both ends? More, please.
17 min: Chance for Mitrovic! Cameroon get in a tangle, failing to clear a ball from the byline, the ball sits up for him and the big man scuffs wide. Oof.
16 min: N’Koulou sees glory from long range but ends up blamming the ball into the Bud Zero concession at the back of the stand.
15 min: No pattern of play to speak of here. Not much play to speak of. It’s been a typical Qatar 2022 first half so far. Hongla makes his belated return to the field.
14 min: Few bumps and bruises out there, players going down all over the show but the heat probably doesn’t speed their getting back up.
12 min: Hongla goes down, felled by Kostic, the Juventus man, such a good player for Eintracht Frankfurt. Rigobert Song looks worried. And somehow cool, though he always looks cool. Hongla leaves the field to receive treatment.
10 min: There’s a bit of afters over a throw-in, and a bit of needle creeping in…oh, here’s Mitrovic, cutting inside, sending Tolo sliding off, and then crashing the ball off the post on the opposite side. That’s what he can do, that mix of silk and steel.
8 min: If you are interested in such things, both teams are playing a variation of 4-3-3, though Mitrovic is playing for further forward in the formation than opposite number Choupo-Moting.
6 min: First chance for Mitrovic, the ball crossed to him by Tadic, and he nods wide. He was probably a bit too far out to trouble the Cameroon goal.
5 min: The first goalkeeper to wobble is not Epassy but Milinkovic-Savic, who makes a mess of pass out and plays it straight to Kunde. Cameroon can’t profit, and Serbia break on the counter.
3 min: From a spy in the stadium, the BBC Radio Manchester reporter Richard Stead: “I’m in a seat in the baking sunshine. Air conditioning under the seat is just making it bearable!”
2 min: Mitrovic is back on, for now. Good news for Fulham, unless he makes it worse by playing on.
1 min: And away we go…, with sun beaming down on the Serbian goal, and now Mitrovic has taken a nasty fall in leaping for the ball. His ankle looked to take the brunt, after he smashed into Hongla. He limps off but is at least able to walk off.
Here’s the anthems, Cameroon going first, before Serbia in a stadium claimed by the authorities to be carbon-neutral by being offset. Though does that include the aircon cooling down the pitch?
With Onana out, all eyes on Devis Epassy, Saudi Pro League club Abha. From the Guardian’s World Cup Player Interactive:
Born in France, Epassy started his career in Rennes’ youth ranks in 2012, and has been on the move since, playing in France, Greece, Spain and, since August, in Saudi Arabia. His international chance has come relatively late in his career: Cameroon’s then goalkeeping coach Jacques Celestin Songo’o approached him two years ago, and he won his first call-up in June 2021. He was solid in his debut – a 0-0 draw with Nigeria – and looks to have secured his spot as André Onana’s deputy, having impressed when covering for him during Onana’s ban. He was part of the squad for the last Africa Cup of Nations, and in his five caps before arriving in Qatar had kept three clean sheets. A very capable understudy.
Important reporting from Paul MacInnes.
It may seem an observation that ought not to have to be made, but the Saudi fanbase in Qatar is made up of both men and women. At Education City on Saturday afternoon, perhaps one in 20 of those making their way into the stadium were female, making them equivalent to the number of women there to support Poland. This is a first.
Three years ago, as part of a series of reforms, a decree from the Saudi royal family announced that women would be allowed to leave the country without first acquiring the consent of their male guardian. The guardianship system remains, and applies to every woman throughout their lives, with the role of guardian transferring from father to husband. But it does not apply in as many aspects as it once did – which means that going to this neighbouring World Cup, for a country that is demonstrably football mad, is now possible for everyone.
Fabrizio Romano has an inside track on Andre Onana’s rather sensational removal from the Cameroon team.
It’s nothing to do with a Michael Crawford revival. Or Steve Harley.
Kári Tulinius gets in touch:” One theme of this World Cup so far is good teams without top class strikers. So it’ll be fascinating to see whether Choupo-Moting or Mitrović step up. Of course, neither is exactly a dependable goalscorer, but the former did net a crucial goal against Algeria in the playoff which took the tie into extra time, and the latter has a half-century of goals in 77 matches for Serbia.”
On Friday, the Football Federation of Kosovo (FFK) submitted a complaint to Fifa, football’s world governing body, over Serbia’s “chauvinistic rhetoric” with the flag seen hanging in their dressing room after the defeat by Brazil.
“Such acts of chauvinism have no place in a sports event, and even less inside the facilities where the biggest event of world football takes place, therefore FFK, as an equal member with all other members of Fifa, demands from this institution to undertake sanctioning measures against actions that incite hatred between peoples and are against human values.”
“It is unacceptable for this act to pass in silence, therefore we strongly request that Fifa strictly implement its rules and punish the football federation of Serbia for this aggressive action and against the values that football conveys.”
Fifa has opened disciplinary proceedings against Serbia’s football association.
First look at those teams and it’s clear Dusan Vlahovic, one of the best strikers in Serie A, is not fit enough to play the 90 minutes. He’s still nursing a groin problem picked up playing for Juventus. Wing back Filip Kostic was named in the starting side after missing the opening game with a muscle problem.
Cameroon coach have made two changes to the team who lost 1-0 to Switzerland, replacing keeper Andre Onana with Devis Epassy and midfielder Samuel Oum Gouet with Pierre Kunde.
The word on Onana, a big-name player for Cameroon but who has had a troubled time recently, that he’s been dropped for disciplinary reasons.
Here’s the teams
Cameroon: Epassy, Fai, Castelletto, N’Koulou, Tolo, Zambo, Kunde, Hongla, Mbeumo, Choupo-Moting, Toko Ekambi. Subs: Ngapandouetnbu, Mbekeli, Wooh, Ondoua, Ngamaleu, Nkoudou, Nsame, Aboubakar, Bassogog, Gouet, Mbaizo, Ntcham, Ebosse, Marou.
Serbia: Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, Milenkovic, Veljkovic, Pavlovic, Zivkovic, Lukic, Maksimovic, Kostic, Tadic, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Aleksandar Mitrovic. Subs: Dmitrovic, Erakovic, Radonjic, Gudelj, Jovic, Rajkovic, Stefan Mitrovic, Babic, Vlahovic, Racic, Djuricic, Lazovic, Ilic, Mladenovic, Grujic.
Jonathan Liew aims his intellectual eye at the experience of ‘being there’ in the stadia.
One can sense this from the moment one climbs the steps and emerges into the arena itself, which at this tournament feels less like entering a sporting venue and more like beaming through a portal. Loud, pumping, wall-to-wall music fills every conceivable space and orifice. The tunes stop a few seconds before the game begins and kicks in a second after the whistle blows. On the big screens, adverts for crypto‑trading compete for attention with the booming, rib‑juddering din of the official pitchside announcer, jabbering away like a circus ringmaster.
Here’s today’s World Cup briefing, including a mini-preview of this match.
Both teams must recover from opening defeats and find their first goals of the tournament. Since the glory of their run to the quarter-finals in 1990, Cameroon have not made it out of the group stages while Serbia have never reached the knockouts. Will Dragan Stojkovic play both his star forwards in Dusan Vlahovic and Aleksandar Mitrovic? They spent just 17 second-half minutes together as Brazil ran away with the game in Serbia’s opener. Rigobert Song, the Cameroon coach whose tracksuits have made him a cult hero, must find a way to get service to Eric Choupo-Moting and Bryan Mbeumo in attack. JB
The Serbian coach, the legendary Dragan Stojkovic, also spoke ahead of the game.
We knew the first match with Brazil would be very difficult given that we had personnel problems with injury to some of the key players for us, so this World Cup for Serbia began after the match with Brazil.
It’s an important match against Cameroon given that both them and ourselves have started with a defeat, but that does not diminish our ambitions and objectives for what we wish to achieve and what we expect.
Some Cameroon news ahead of the teams. It seems Samuel Eto’o, who happens to be president of the Cameroon FA has put them under pressure by predicting they would reach the final – against Morocco – and that’s not to the taste of Rigobert Song, the national coach, who has had to deny a rift with his former teammate.
I would say sometimes he even wants to put on the jersey and get out on the pitch to play, because he wants to give everything. But that is not why my players didn’t score against Switzerland. The president is a gentleman who is very supportive.
He was a footballer himself, he lives, breathes and dreams football, but he does not put any burden or stress on our shoulders, no. The president is someone who is easy to talk to, he is open and we communicate a lot.
“It will be a decisive game and we are well prepared. I think you will see a different side to this Cameroon side and we will silence our critics.
Preamble
After just over a week of football in the Richard & Judy slot, this is the last of the list of matches to chew over with your morning coffee and crossword, not to get all John Motson Japan/Korea 2002 and overuse the breakfast metaphors. But it signals the final day of the second group round of first-round group stages, if you follow that. After their first match, both of these teams really need a win, having lost their openers. Cameroon lost 1-0 to Switzerland, a game notable for the winner being scored by a Cameroon-born lad in Breel Embolo, who delivered a first-rate issue of the non-celebration celebration and STILL got a volley of abuse from the social media trolls. Serbia were meanwhile on the end of Brazil’s coming out party, and having acquitted themselves well enough in defence, stopping Neymar in particular, tired and were on the end of Richarlison’s double.
Win at all costs for both? Not quite, since Brazil are probably expected to beat Switzerland, and that means Serbia can draw this and then hope to beat the Swiss. Cameroon meanwhile could really do with winning this as they have Brazil last of all. Both teams lacked a cutting edge in their opening matches, despite quality attackers in Dusan Tadic and Aleksandar Mitrovic for Serbia and Eric Choupo-Moting and Bryan Mbeumo. It’s been a tight tourney so far in terms of goals, only Spain and England have smashed them in, only to lose that scoring touch in the next game. This feels like it should be – and will be – a tight affair but here’s hoping for a morning classic.
Kick-off is 10am UK time, 1pm Mecca/Qatar time. Join me.
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