It began as a tale of two centre‑forwards and ended as a game of two goalkeepers. As the Netherlands began their World Cup campaign with a 2-0 win against Senegal, it had seemed the decisive factor would be the absence from the starting lineups of Sadio Mané, and Memphis Depay. But in the end it turned out to be about the two goalkeepers, the debutant Andries Noppert of the Netherlands, who had a fine game, and Édouard Mendy of Senegal, who did not.
For Senegal, it had all seemed to be going well. With their fans drumming away behind Aliou Cissé’s bench, this sounded like a Cup of Nations game and, for a long time, it looked like a Cup of Nations game as well. There was very little width, a lot of bodies banging into each other in a congested centre, and only ever the vaguest sense that a goal might come.
