The body always gives it away. Yellow-jerseyed grown men were laying face-down in the rare green grasses of the desert. They burrowed their noses and foreheads a wee bit deeper down, as if hoping the stuff might grow up around them and hide them from their fate.
After fighting so damn hard and wading through the ethical swamps to get here, no one wants to leave Qatar. For now at least. But Ecuador must. And it was all too much for them as they tried to hide their tears in the blades of green but their bodies, shaking and shuddering with the sobs, gave it away.
Senegal’s wild delight and their band’s incessant drumming kicking it up one impossible notch more was the contrast because there has to be one. The yin yang of these days will be the norm the rest of the way for Qatar’s confounding, conflicting but, on the field, captivating World Cup.
Tuesday was moving day, the tournament transitioning to a week of the most widespread consequence. With just two of the 32 teams eliminated as the final round of group games began, we had a situation where every single one of the remaining 16 group games had something on the line, with 11 of them set up just like this one — with everything on the line for the two sides involved.
Senegal crossed that line here thanks to captain Kalidou Koulibaly’s first ever international goal arriving at the most opportune of moments. Ecuador are out, the third team gone with two more from Group B to follow them later in their teary night to forget. The next four days will see another 11 teams join them. The four days after that another eight eliminated. We’ve rapidly reached that part of the tournament that spins you around and screws with your senses. You’re focusing on one thing and miss a dozen things. You’re going to the fridge at a house party at 3.15am and realise half of the people you wanted to talk absolute balderdash with have scarpered.
This was just day one of the Hunger Games phase but there seems something more pressing, more austere about the prospect of elimination here in Qatar. Supporters have already had their say on how, away from the football, the tournament has failed to live up to most of the promises around it, many of which Qatar had no intention of following through on anyway. The idea of having to hang around for a couple of days post-elimination doesn’t seem all that alluring in a place where you can’t dampen a single sorrow, never mind drown them.
Ecuador though, looked a side slow to appreciate the gravity of it all. We weren’t yet sure what they truly offered. On opening night they only needed to operate at 50 per cent of whatever their full throttle looked like to beat a mortifyingly bad host nation who had no business among the elite. Next they had held the Dutch but showed little adventure themselves. Perhaps they were in fact a side with some promising young talent but relying on a limited supporting cast and a 33-year-old frontman who scored 10 goals in 68 games for West Ham five or six years ago.
That’s certainly how Senegal made them look early on, Idrissa Gueye skewing a great chance wide just two minutes in, Boulaye Dia following suit soon after. Senegal were getting in behind Ecuador, previously watertight, with remarkable ease.
Aliou Cisse’s side were by far the more ambitious but the first goal of the day would be up the road in Al Bayt where the Dutch piled more misery on the hosts. In contrast, things tightened up here almost until the break. A minute before half time, Ismaila Sarr scorched through the heart of the Ecuador defence and was dramatically upended by the hapless Piero Hincapie. Sarr stepped up, looked one way, placed the ball the other and Senegal were on a path to progress. If you are wondering whether the relentless Senegalese drummers stop for a penalty, we unfortunately can’t hear you. But the answer is they don’t.
The champions of Africa have been forced to grow into the tournament. They arrived here as their continent’s leading lights but with darkness surrounding their own. Sadio Mane’s World Cup would indeed be over before it began. But it would be good news to see them rebound enough for progress to be possible.
Russia 2018 marked the first time that no African team made it to the knock-out stages since the last 16 was introduced in 1986. As Senegal emerged for the second half to defend a lead, they were en route to ensuring there would be no repeat here. The other four African sides were all still alive too, Morocco and Ghana in solid positions to make it a record three African sides avoiding the early departure.
Senegal sat in to try to make it as smooth a passage as possible. Cisse was not prowling but patiently pacing the sideline, looking supremely confident but also supremely comfortable in his slate grey athleisure wear and baseball cap. A man dressed for the airport with absolutely no intention of going there any time soon.
Gueye, who picked up a booking that rules him out of the last 16, and the Senegalese middle were largely holding firm but this whole rodeo is not designed to be drama-free.
It arrived in the shape of Moises Caicedo who was left alone at the back post during a corner and, with 22 minutes to go, bundled home. Senegal were now homeward-bound again but not for long. Their own set piece less then two minutes later offered a reprieve and Koulibaly reached out and grabbed it, volleying the deflected delivery past Hernan Galindez.
They had to hold out for just 20 minutes now and that seemed less daunting than 45.
They duly did and as Cisse’s players sprinted out on to the pitch in ecstasy, he turned back to his bench and toasted progress with his support staff, who have all gone through too much to go home just yet.
Once they’d picked themselves up, some Ecuador players draped substitutes’ bibs over their heads to hide their tears, to block out the only route now left in front of them — home. The exodus had begun.
