The first pancake with a goal: Uzbekistan debuted at the World Cup with a defeat against Colombia

The national team of Uzbekistan lost to Colombia with a score of 1:3 in its debut match at the World Championships. The meeting of the first round of Group K was held at the famous Azteca Stadium in Mexico City to a full house — 80,824 spectators attended the game. The main event for Uzbek fans was the historic goal of CSKA midfielder Abbosbek Fayzullaev. However, Fabio Cannavaro's team could not achieve more: Colombia used its advantage in class and experience. At the same time, the national team remains optimistic: the debut at the tournament and the country's first goal at the World Championships have already become an important milestone for national football.

Uzbekistan's first World Cup match

This game concluded the first round of the World Cup, which has already brought many unexpected results. The star teams of Portugal, Brazil and Spain could not beat less high-profile rivals. Turkey unexpectedly lost to Australia (0:2), and Tunisian national team head coach Sabri Lamoushi was dismissed after losing to Sweden (1:5).

Against this background, Uzbekistan has not performed any feats or done anything out of the ordinary. But the very fact of participating in competitions of this level means a lot to the country. The government even postponed the start of the working day by two hours so that citizens could watch the morning broadcast from Mexico City.

To say that there was a lot of excitement in Uzbekistan before the national team's debut at the World Cup is an understatement. It was felt even thousands of kilometers away from the Central Asian country. It was enough just to look into social networks. Judging by them, the public in Uzbekistan believes in their team wholeheartedly. The game started at 7 a.m. local time, but despite this, people gathered to watch in fan zones across the country. And yes, the well—worn phrase about football being united was definitely not a cliche in this case.

A certain number of Uzbek fans reached the legendary Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Fortunately for them, it is still somewhat easier to get to Mexico than to the United States, at least in the visa sense. And it's much cheaper to be on the southern side of the border. The Uzbek diaspora from the United States probably came to cheer for their own people.

Although, of course, the stands at 9/10 were filled with fans of the Colombian national team. This is not surprising — geographically it is very close, in a sense, the tournament can be considered almost a home for the Colombians. On the other hand, they also came in huge numbers to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, which was far away for them.

Fayzullayev went down in history

The match was also announced as a confrontation between the two main stars of the teams at the moment — Abdulkodir Husanov and Luis Diaz. Moreover, the confrontation is quite direct: the Uzbek national team plays according to the 3-4-2-1 scheme, and Khusanov is the right of the three central defenders. While Diaz was located on the left flank of the Colombian attack.

Interestingly, for both players it was their debut at the World Championships. In the case of Khusanov, everything is clear, but Diaz did not qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, and Colombia itself did not qualify for the 2022 World Cup.

In the first half, Diaz Husanova certainly outperformed. First, he hit the post, peeling off just from the Manchester City defender, then he earned a yellow card on the Bayern forward, mowing down the Colombian right on the sideline. And at the end of the first half, Diaz shifted to the center and delivered an outstanding pass to Daniel Munoz, who sent the ball into the net with a kung fu-style jump. It was also spectacular because Munoz is a right—back who has shifted to the center forward position. In this sense, Colombia, led by the 1986 world champion in the Argentine national team, Nestor Lorenzo, corresponded to all the fashionable tactical trends.

But Uzbekistan disappointed. Not only by his tightness, but also by his lack of initiative in attack. It's not clear what Timurids head coach Fabio Cannavaro wanted to offer his opponent. The inability to give three accurate passes in a row, one and a half approaches to someone else's goal and not a single shot in the first half — it was really sad. Something similar to the Russian national team under the late Fabio Capello.

But after the break, Uzbekistan began to revive. It was still bad with the moments, but at least the ball control began to break through. The return goal didn't exactly follow from the logic of the match, but it certainly wasn't something completely random. And the main hero of the attack in the 60th minute was Dostonbek Khamdanov, who caught up with the ball after a poor pass at the very goal line and managed to cut a pass to the far post. The forward and captain of the team, Eldor Shomurodov, has been hitting the ball since the summer. The ball bounced off the turf, disoriented goalkeeper Camilo Vargas and hit the post from the inside. Abbosbek Fayzullayev, who found himself in front of an empty goal, sent the ball into the net with his head from close range.

The joy, however, was short-lived. The Colombians covered Eldor Shomurodov in the center of the field after putting the ball out and organized a 4-in-2 attack, which was completed by Diaz, who confirmed the status of the leader and the main star of this team.

In the end, Uzbekistan was not bad and even tried to save this game. But it's so incompetent to fulfill promising standards — it's necessary to manage. The balls after serving from good points flew somewhere towards the corner flag. And to top it all off, the Timurids also ruined their goal difference by conceding in the 9th minute.

"The game was interesting. In the second half, we managed to change the course of the game, we created several chances, we tried to take control of the game into our own hands," Fabio Cannavaro, head coach of the Uzbekistan national team, summed up the meeting at the post—match press conference.

According to the Italian specialist, his team came to the World Cup to adequately represent Uzbekistan, and generally left him with positive impressions. Cannavaro admitted that the players made mistakes and they have to work on correcting them. In addition, the coach noted that it is extremely difficult to play against an opponent at the level of the Colombian national team. At the same time, he was pleased with the team's actions after the break and stressed that this match will forever remain in the history of Uzbek football.

— In Uzbekistan, everyone was sick and worried about the national team. It was obvious that the guys weren't too worried, so they were able to build their game. Perhaps the team needed to be more organized in attack and defense. But overall, she looked good," Dmitry Ahn, Abbosbek Fayzullayev's first coach, told Sport Express. "I'm incredibly glad that Abbos scored Uzbekistan's first goal at the World Championships. This is a historic event for him and for the whole country. Fayzullayev always had a flair, and before that he scored goals with his head, given his short stature. It's very nice.

With the current World Cup format, one victory may be enough to get out of the group. Uzbekistan will have to extract it in matches with Portugal and DR Congo.