World Cup round-up: Canada get goals but suffer serious injury, Mexico win, Xhaka scores

Morning all.

I had a World Cup free day yesterday, so I’m just trying to piece together the goings-on. Hosts Canada had a big win over Qatar (6-0) but it was a game marred by a horrible injury to midfielder Isamel Kone. The challenge from behind, which was late, left his leg hanging in a way that will sadly be too familiar for Arsenal fans, having seen three of our players suffer similar injuries in the past.

There’s a video here, but obviously discretion is advised – it’s not the most pleasant way to start your Friday morning. The red card for Assim Madibo meant Qatar, who had already had a man sent off for denial of a goalscoring opportunity, went down to 9 men, and already 3-0 up, Canada turned the screw to score three more before the final whistle.

Clearly though no amount of goals makes up for the fact one of your players picks up an injury that serious, and let’s hope that Kone can make a full recovery in due course. I went to the FIFA website to see if I could find some reaction, and it’s quite weird that they don’t even mention the injury, although they do say that ‘Assim Madibo’s challenge on Ismael Kone resulted in red.’ Feels a bit white-washy, like they don’t want to have anything taint their precious tournament.

Afterwards, Canada’s head coach Jesse Marsch said:

I haven’t spoken to Ismael yet, he’s at the hospital, he will prepare for a surgery. It happened right in front of the bench – everyone could hear the bone snap. Your heart goes out to him, and everybody’s a little shaken by the experience, because of the nature of the injury and also because Ismael is a big part of the team.

He also said Madibo had apologised, but a testy touchline interaction between himself and Qatar coach Julen Lopetegui suggested a clear difference of opinion:

Let me be clear, the player apologised to Ismael, came into the dressing room and apologised to him and Ismael told the team that had happened. So I don’t think that he meant such a gruesome tackle or gruesome situation. But I don’t understand a reaction from their entire bench to try to start a fight about it being a red card when a clear foul just happened that broke a player’s leg.

I think we all understand the instinct of a manager to defend their player, but sometimes you have to acknowledge when they do something wrong. The ‘not that kind of player’ thing that’s always so prevalent after incidents like this is singularly unhelpful and pointless. Of course they’re not (generally speaking) but they’re still responsible, and that’s where the buck should stop. Own that, and do better.

Earlier Czechia drew 1-1 with South Africa, and things turned late in the game between Switzerland and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Swiss took the lead in the 74th minute through Johan Manzambi’s fine volley, Ruben Vargas doubled the lead after B&H went down to 10 men, Manzambi scored again in the 90th minute before the Swiss conceded one, and to round things out former Gunner Granit Xhaka made it 4-1 from the spot in the depths of injury time.

In the final game of the day, there was a big win for co-hosts Mexico as they beat South Korea 1-0 in Guadalajara. The only goal came 5 minutes into the second half through Luis Romo after the Korean goalkeeper dropped a clanger and the ball, allowing him to hook the ball into an empty net. It means Mexico, after their opening day win, become the first team to officially qualify for the knock-out rounds, while South Korea face South Africa in their final game, still in decent shape to go through themselves.

Today, we’ve got the US v Australia, Scotland taking on Morocco, potential Arsenal involvement as Brazil face Haiti, and Turkey against Paraguay.

Also today, the new Premier League fixtures are released, officially at 9am this morning. We’ll cover that over on Arseblog News, and we can look at them in a bit more depth in tomorrow’s blog. For some extra reading, here’s Tim’s column on Ethan Nwaneri and what his future might hold. So, I’ll leave it there this morning, not forgetting there’s a brand new Arsecast below if you need something to listen to.

Have a great Friday folks.