With Group A now in the books we know that the Netherlands, and Senegal will be advancing to the round of 16. This outcome is perhaps the first injustice that we’ve seen in the World Cup so far. Ecuador had decent outings in their first two games. Sadly for them, they decided to have their worst game in the most important game of the tournament. Their elimination comes with a sense of controversy and injustice!
Was That A Penalty?
Senegal’s first goal came from the spot. The play though that led to the penalty is controversial to say the least. The referee didn’t think twice before he decided to award a penalty to Senegal. Ecuador defender Hincapie comes flying in from the other side of the field to try and cover a good run by Ismaila Sarr. From the replay it’s the slip at the end of the play that gets him. If he’s able to contact Sarr shoulder to shoulder and stay up right Hincapie has a better case on the play. Ultimately since he slips up and completely blocks Sarr from moving forward there are more elements to call that play a penalty. Still, we get the sense that the people of Ecuador are going to feel robbed.
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— Videos Random Noticias (@vrandomnoticias) November 29, 2022
Penal para Senegal
Entrada desmedida de Piero Hincapie#Latri pic.twitter.com/b8TcHJDBV0
The Lesson That Ecuador Has Provided For Other Teams
Intensity should be non negotiable at any point in the World Cup. Ecuador knew going into the game that they were through to the next round with a draw. In a sense that hurt them because it was Senegal who were playing with more urgency and more intensity, particularly throughout the first half. When Ecuador was down in the scoreboard they were never really able to crank things back up. They scored a goal that saw them tie the game back up for a moment. Even that goal though came in a set piece play. The overall flow of the game was always in Senegal’s favor. Of course the other thing that helped the African nation was the fact that Koulibaly was able to score off of an Ecuador deflection also from a dead ball play minutes after Ecuador had equalized.
Countries like Spain, or even Poland, and Croatia should look at this and be very careful about playing things too conservative. Each of these squads could find themselves out of the tournament with a loss. Despite the fact that they’ve had a pretty good first round so far. We may be talking about them in the next couple of days in the same light that we’re seeing Ecuador. A team that showed that they can compete on the world stage, but ultimately lacked intensity and even will power in key moments.
What We Expect From The Netherlands & Senegal Moving Forward
The matchups that are going to result from the Group A and Group B winners and runners-up look to be a toss up. If England had been able to beat the USMNT we may be saying that they are heavy favorites over Senegal. At the time of writing for this article we don’t even know if they’ll make it out of the group! On the other side the Netherlands haven’t lost in the tournament. They look to be a solid team defensively with one good offensive piece. We didn’t love their performance against Ecuador though. If they have to go and face England for example, they would be underdogs in that matchup for sure. A face off between them and the USMNT could give the US a good chance to make it through to the next round. The US can compete with the Netherlands on all levels!
