OK, that is your lot from me today. I will be back on Monday, by which time we will be halfway through the round of 16, and England will either be guaranteed surefire winners on their way to the title for definite this time, or we’ll be embroiled in a massive postmortem with every Tom, Dick and Harriet on Twitter saying that if only Gareth Southgate had played an extra three forwards in a 2-1-7 formation, surely England’s destiny would have been assured. I digress.
Rob Smyth is your man for Ghana v Uruguay.
Barry Glendenning is at the controls for South Korea v Portugal.
Enjoy the football, and have a great weekend.
Australia coach Graham Arnold has also been up before the media, and vowed his side will take on Argentina with “all guns blazing” in their World Cup last-16 showdown on Saturday.
“Look, the group games are past us and it’s a one-off game, anything could happen,” PA reports Arnold said. “It’s 11 v 11, a battle, a war and we’ve got to fight that. We’ll give it everything, all guns blazing.
“We respect Argentina, for sure, but we can’t focus solely on them. We respect them but we respect ourselves and what we bring to the table.”
Arnold feels Australia’s success is payback for a gruelling qualifying campaign, where Covid restrictions back home meant playing most of their matches away, including five in Qatar itself.
“The universe is paying us back for the hard work we put in,” he added. “We played four games out of 20 at home, and we had some hard journeys.
“But Covid helped unite this team together, these boys were in lockdown in hotels.
“The fact we played five qualifiers in Qatar gave us experience of being here, and now we’ve won six out of seven games in Qatar. For us, it’s a home away from home.
“One thing we have achieved is bringing light to the nation after Covid and reuniting our sport. We’ve seen the scenes of celebration and it really makes everyone proud, and we want more.
“We haven’t finished yet, we are turning up to win another game tomorrow.”
