World Cup Mirror (Part 3)

The 48-team World Cup promised upheaval. For a fortnight, it looked capable of delivering one. Paraguay dumped four-time champions Germany out on penalties in the Round of 32. Morocco did the same to the Netherlands hours later, in a game the Dutch seemed content to see out on penalties. Brazil, the most decorated nation in the competition’s history, were beaten by Norway in the last sixteen, continuing their run of being eliminated by a European side at every World Cup since they last won one in 2002. Egypt led Argentina 2-0 with eleven minutes left in that same round before Lionel Messi and two late goals turned the game on its head. ANF arrests 8 suspects, seizes over 79kg of narcotics in nationwide operations None of it lasted. By the semi-finals, the tournament had reverted to type. France, Spain, England and Argentina remain, and for the first time in World Cup history, the last four are exactly the top four-ranked teams that entered it. The underdogs had their say. Then football’s oldest hierarchy reasserted itself, the way it usually does once the smaller sample sizes of knockout football give way to the bigger tests. Spain against France, in Dallas, is probably the tournament’s finest tactical puzzle. This is not the Spain of endless possession and sterile domination that came to define the tiki-taka era. They have built their run on defence: one goal conceded in six matches, five clean sheets, a run so mean it briefly set a World Cup record before Belgium finally breached it in the quarter-final. There is a question buried in that solidity, too. Against Belgium and Portugal, Spain occasionally looked like a team more interested in the perfect pass than the available shot. Luis de la Fuente has an answer for that on the bench. Mikel Merino, sent on as an impact substitute, scored the winners against both Portugal and Belgium, adding the aerial threat and directness that Spain’s midfield sometimes lacks. Lamine Yamal, at eighteen, remains brilliant and unproven in the moments that decide semi-finals. Every touch is measured against Messi’s teenage years, which is an unfair yardstick for anyone. He may need one defining moment of his own on Tuesday. Intensive, targeted anti-dengue operation in Potohar Town launched France have been this World Cup’s best team, full stop. Didier Deschamps has built a side that defends compactly and breaks with real venom, and the numbers back the eye test: sixteen goals scored in six matches, only two conceded, comfortably the tournament’s best defensive and attacking records combined. Kylian Mbappé has kept adding to his World Cup legend, Ousmane Dembélé has found the consistency that used to elude him, and Michael Olise has been one of the finds of the summer. Together, they form the most dangerous front three left in the competition. Comfort, though, can be its own trap. France’s defence has not really been stretched by a side capable of dominating the ball for long spells. Spain are that side, and history offers Spain encouragement: they beat France in the Euro 2024 semi-final, pressing and passing them into submission. The real question on Tuesday is not whether Spain can beat France, since recent evidence says they can. It is whether they can stay true to their own football against the one team built to punish a stray pass. Mbappé, Dembélé and Olise need only a sliver of space to turn defence into a three-on-two. Overcommit, and France will make Spain pay. Sit too deep, and Spain stop being Spain. Rescue agencies put on high alert as Jhelum braces for seasonal rains If France-Spain is a chess match, England against Argentina is old business. Few rivalries carry this much weight. Diego Maradona’s Hand of God and his slaloming second goal in 1986 remain among the sport’s defining images. David Beckham’s red card in 1998 scarred a generation before his penalty against Argentina at the 2002 World Cup offered England some redemption. Messi, remarkably, has never played England in a tournament match. It is one of the last gaps in an otherwise complete career. England travel to Atlanta with real cause for hope. Harry Kane remains their most reliable weapon, and Jude Bellingham has answered every question asked of him this summer with braces against both Mexico and Norway. There was talk before the tournament that his starting place might not survive Thomas Tuchel’s demands. Tuchel, never one to soften a message, has kept pushing, and Bellingham has kept scoring. The cracks are still there. Declan Rice has carried an injury through the knockout rounds and has not looked entirely himself. England’s wingers have been unconvincing all tournament, and their history with penalty shootouts remains the kind of psychological weight no team wants to carry into a semi-final. Even so, no side left in the competition has improved as much since the group stage. Governor inaugurates two NADRA centres in Attock to expand access to public services Argentina may understand knockout football better than anyone left in the draw. They lack France’s pace and Spain’s technical polish, but the champions know how to manage a lead, kill a game and win when the football isn’t pretty. Messi does not need to dominate a match to shape it; defences still bend themselves around him, and that alone creates room for everyone else. The VAR storm that followed their win over Egypt, egged on by a genuine Egyptian grievance and FIFA’s own defence of the officials, has produced more heat than light. A contested decision is not proof of a conspiracy, whatever social media decided. The Changing Chessboard (Part 2) Four teams, four different answers to the same question. My guess is a France-England final. France carry the highest ceiling left in the competition. England have grown into the tournament faster than anyone else in the draw, and that trajectory matters more now than it did three weeks ago. The expanded format gave football’s smaller nations a longer stage and a louder voice. It did not change who gets to sing the last note. Forty-eight teams took part in this World Cup. Four of them were always going to be here. Irtiza Shafaat BokhareeThe writer is a freelance columnist and a social scientist.

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