Weak Lawyer's defense: Curacao's World Cup debut turned into a rout from Germany

The most unusual trend of the launched FIFA World Cup was the gerontocracy of the coaching corps. In four days, the record for the highest age of head coaches who have ever worked with national teams in the final part of the world championship was beaten three times. Now this achievement belongs to 78-year-old Dick Advocaat, whose Curacao national team defeated Germany 1-7 in their World Cup debut on the evening of June 14. But Qatar and Canada won their first points in the history of performances at the tournament.

Age race

On June 11, Mexico played South Africa in the opening match of the World Cup. The head coach of the South African national team, Belgian Hugo Bros, is 74 years old. At that time, he became the oldest coach in the history of the World Cup, breaking the record of German Otto Rehagel, who led Greece at 71 at the 2010 World Cup.

A few hours later, Czech coach Miroslav Koubek took his country's national team to the field against South Korea. This specialist is also 74 years old, but he was born almost seven months earlier than the Cast. And on June 14, the Curacao national team, led by 78-year-old Dick Advocaat, played against Germany. Interestingly, he was opposed by the youngest head coach of this tournament, 38-year-old German Thomas Nagelsmann.

All three veterans of the workshop started the championship of the planet with a defeat. Thus, Curaçao was brutally defeated by Germany (1-7). It was quite expected, considering the difference in the class of the teams. But in the case of Curaçao, the very fact of entering the tournament is a success. The team from the Caribbean island has become, perhaps, the main beneficiary of the expansion in the number of participants in the World Cup — this summer, 48 teams are playing in it for the first time, instead of 32, as it was from 1998 to 2022.

Dick Advocaat's age—old colleagues, Bros and Koubek, also have a number of mitigating circumstances to explain their initial failures. Bros has been in charge of South Africa since 2022 and has led to the highest achievements in recent years. In 2023, he won the bronze medal of the African Cup of Nations with her. It was only the fourth time in the history and the first time since 2000 that the team became the winners of the continental championship.

And South Africa entered the World Cup for the first time since 2010. Only 16 years ago, South Africa played in the domestic championship, where the hosts get to without qualifying competitions. Previously, South Africa had participated in the World Cup only three times, but had never been out of the group.

Now everything is going to repeat this result, as Bros' team looked very pale against Mexico and lost 0.:2. The experienced Javier Aguirre's team had an overwhelming advantage in the match and, through their own fault, scored only twice, without really taking advantage of two clearances from South Africa. In addition, at the end of the match, the Mexicans stupidly lost their captain, defender of the Moscow Lokomotiv Cesar Montes, due to the removal.

And without him, early in the morning on June 19, they will play against South Korea, which beat the Czech Republic 2-1 against Koubek. The elderly specialist presented his country with the first participation in the World Championships in 20 years. Interestingly, until this summer, the game at the 2006 World Cup was the only one for the Czechs since 1990, that is, since the collapse of Czechoslovakia. And this is despite the fact that at the European Championships the team quite often left the group and claimed high places.

Now she has made it much more difficult for herself to get out of the group by losing to her direct competitor. However, with the current format, it is possible to cling to the playoffs from third place, so even South Africa in Group A is too early to condemn.

— Curacao really played to its strengths, it was unlikely that anything could be seriously opposed to Germany, the difference in class is too great, - Anatoly Byshovets, the former head coach of the Russian national team, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — The same can be said about Mexico's match with South Africa, where the level difference is not so big, but it still affects, besides, the Mexicans are playing at home with a lot of support from the stands. And their head coach Javier Aguirre is also an age specialist, he is also over 70 years old, and he has more experience in major tournaments than the same Throw. Aguirre has already eliminated Mexico from the World Cup group twice (in 2002 and 2010. — Ed.). And obviously strive to surpass those results by making it at least to the quarterfinals. As for Koubek, it seems that the Czech Republic's long absence from the World Championships is having an effect. This is not the Euro, where you don't have to adjust to a different climate, long flights and a completely different atmosphere.

The first points

In 2022, Qatar played in the World Cup finals for the first time in its history. But he got there without selection as the host of the tournament. As a result, he lost all three group stage matches, ending the competition with zero points. However, the numerous investments of local sheikhs in football clubs, infrastructure, and bringing high-quality players and coaches to the local championship have long borne fruit.

Therefore, the Qatar national team has won the last two Asian Cups, and now it has qualified for the 2026 World Cup. And she started the tournament with a confrontation with a very strong Switzerland, which rarely misses the finals of such competitions and quite often gets out of the group.

A year ago, the Spaniard Julen Lopetegui became the head coach of Qatar. In the early 2010s, he won the European Youth Championships several times with his country's national team. And then he led the Spanish national team to the 2018 World Cup and had to go with it to the World Cup in Russia. But a few days before the start of the tournament, he was dismissed from his post, as he had signed a contract with Real Madrid in advance, which was supposed to take effect after the World Cup.

At the tournament itself, under the leadership of Fernando Hierro, who replaced Lopetegui, Spain was eliminated from Russia in the 1/8 finals (1:1; 3:4 on penalties), and the head coach of our team, Stanislav Cherchesov, repeatedly emphasized later that the result was influenced by the emergency resignation of a colleague.

Lopetegui was fired from Real Madrid six months later due to a series of setbacks, but then successfully worked with Sevilla, with whom he won the Europa League in 2020. Then there was the rescue from relegation from the English Premier League by Wolverhampton.

And now there was a debut at the World Cup and a last-minute rescue from a 1-1 defeat by Switzerland. Their competitors in Group B, Canada and Bosnia and Herzegovina— drew with the same score. The Bosnians, as well as the Swiss, led 1-0 and generally played better, but the Canadians gathered closer to the end and equalized in the 78th minute. This is their third participation in the World Championships.

In 1986 and 2022, they made it through the selection process. Now they are automatically there as one of the hosts of the tournament. And on June 12, we scored a historic first point in Toronto, as we lost all the group matches in Mexico 1986 and Qatar 2022.

Brazil's misfire

For Russia, one of the main events of the current World Cup was that Brazil's final bid included two Zenit players — defender Douglas Santos and striker Luis Enrique. This is a unique case, because even in the 2000s and 2010s, when very high-quality foreign players from South America began to come to the RPL, the competition in Brazil was too great for such players to play for it at the World Cup.

As a result, Douglas Santos played the opening game of the tournament against Morocco in full. Luis Enrique came on as a substitute in the second half. So far, it has not helped much, as the meeting ended in a 1-1 draw. However, the Brazilians could only be called clear favorites by inertia, since at the last World Cup they performed worse than the Moroccans, who reached the semifinals, which has never happened to African national teams.

Scotland is now in the lead in their Group C, having beaten Haiti 1-0. For the Scots, this is the first victory in the World Cup finals since 1990. In general, they got to this tournament for the first time since 1998.

— Of course, it is a great success for Russian football that two foreign players from our championship are playing at the base of the Brazilian national team in such a major competition, — Dmitry Bulykin, a former striker of the Russian national team, told Izvestia. — Moreover, the trust of such an outstanding specialist as the head coach of the Brazilians, Carlo Ancelotti, is no coincidence. Yes, the tournament did not start very well for the whole team, but Morocco as an opponent is not a gift. Therefore, I would not be surprised that during the tournament the Brazilians will accelerate and will fight for victory at the World Cup.

The first round in Group D was also held. There is another host of the tournament — the US national team beat Paraguay (3:1). And Australia got the better of Turkey (2-0). Also on the night of June 15, another match took place in Group E, where Germany and Curacao are playing. Their competitors are Ivory Coast and Ecuador. In addition, the competition in Group F started on the same night. The Netherlands played Japan there, and Sweden played Tunisia.