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Lawrence, a college town of about 100,000 in northeastern Kansas, has embraced Les Fennecs with a fervor that has surprised everyone but the people who live thereYou’ve probably seen it by now: The video of a sweet elderly man overcome with emotion, standing outside in the rain and thunderstorms of Lawrence, Kansas, as Algeria arrived at its base camp.The video and several more have gone viral as the surprise love affair of the World Cup has emerged from what seems like the unlikeliest of places – at least to those on the outside.Algeria and Lawrence, Kansas, are apparently a match made in heaven.“Seeing five to six hundred people that first evening, fans that were waiting outside our hotel, it really gave me goosebumps,” said Algeria head coach Valdimir Petković ahead of Tuesday’s showdown with Argentina.Lawrence is located a little over 40 miles from Kansas City, a roughly 40-minute drive from the Metropolitan area that is hosting the base camps of Argentina, the Netherlands, and England for the World Cup. All three are staying at boutique hotels around the city. Algeria? Well, they chose the humble Lawrence DoubleTree.So where did this come from? According to Stan Herd, a local artist, you have to go back to April, when it was officially announced that Lawrence would host Algeria.“I think everybody’s surprised at it,” Herd said. “We’re not.”Local organizers wanted to make sure that the country felt welcome in their city, according to Herd. So much so, they’ve commissioned artwork, and signs appear on the lampposts with the phrase “1,2,3, Viva l’Algérie!” Even McDonald’s drive-thru windows have signs welcoming Algeria and soccer fans to Lawrence.Herd says Lawrence is “a blue city in a red state”. The city of nearly 100,000 is home to 27,000 college students from the University of Kansas. Roughly 30% of that student population is minorities or international students.“Make sure you mention Sajedah,” Herd said. “She’s the one who reached 70,000 Algerians [via social media]. She’s a University of Kansas student, and she made this happen.”Sajedah wanted to find a way to bring her college town and her local Algerian Diaspora together. Thousands of Algerians live in the southern suburbs of the Kansas City metropolitan area, along with Sajedah, her sister, and her mother, Karima. They helped organize the support of the team’s arrival at the airport, through the creation of an Instagram account and Facebook page titled “L’Algerie fi Kansas City”.Two days after Algeria’s arrival, the account helped organize a gathering at Kanza Market, an Algerian-owned business in Olathe, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, roughly 40 minutes from Lawrence. Hundreds showed up, mostly Algerians from the community.Two days later, thousands showed up at Rock Chalk Park, the home of the University of Kansas women’s soccer team, where Algeria trains daily. A blend of locals, soccer diehards, Lawrence residents trying to find out about all the hype, and the local Algerian community, ready to see its team.Of all the mandated community sessions held by teams based in the Kansas City area, Algeria’s was the most community focused. Algerian music played over the loudspeakers the entire session. And the “clinic” ended up being a massive kickaround on the infield of the neighboring track stadium, with hundreds of kids kicking the ball around with the likes of globally recognized names like Riyad Mahrez, Ibrahim Maza, Aissa Mandi, and Amine Gouiri.The University of Kansas Band learned the Algerian National Anthem and played it perfectly as the team came out to train. Mahrez made sure to share his thanks via social media the next day.“We saw that there were so many US citizens who had scarves for us,” said Petković. “They showed so much support, and they really wanted to celebrate this moment with our team.”Two brothers, Aaron and Ethan Downey, met Karima and Sajedah at the team’s arrival in Lawrence. When they reunited at the community session in Lawrence, Karima had gifts for the boys: Algeria jerseys in their correct size.One was a diehard Borussia Dortmund fan who got his new Algeria jersey signed by Ramy Bensebaini. After he got his shirt signed, he bounded back up the steps of Rock Chalk Park, where Karima sat. The two shared a deep embrace.“We as Lawrence residents didn’t adopt the team,” said Aaron. “I think the Algerians adopted us. They brought all the vibes, the culture, the acceptance, to the residents of Lawrence. I think that’s what made us so close and made this what it is.”Everything that has taken place in the city of Lawrence flies in the face of many narratives. Herd bemoaned rhetoric and the disdain for immigrants that has come from American political figures and the dark corners of social media.“There’s a lot of unnecessary anger at people who don’t look like us, and pray like us, and walk like us, and cheer like us,” Herd said. “In Lawrence, we are wide open to embracing something new. That’s the difference.”Days later, both Downey brothers joined Herd, and 600 others, gathering around Herd’s field art rendition of the Algerian flag. They sang songs and danced around the flag, Algerians and native Lawrence residents hand in hand.In tears, Karima said the support was beyond anything they could have ever imagined.As Algeria take on Argentina on Tuesday, it will be the minority of support in the stands. Argentinians and Messi fans have descended on Kansas City in the thousands in recent days. And on the field, Algeria will be the underdogs at Kansas City Stadium.But the events of recent weeks will, without a doubt, mean that a few local attendees will end up pulling for Algeria, the adopted team of Lawrence, Kansas.“I hope that we can behave in the right way in terms of the way that we conduct ourselves on and off the pitch, that we can certainly give a positive response to absolutely everyone,” said Petković. “But, I hope that we can make it through to the knockout stage and maybe everyone from Kansas can travel with us to another city.”

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Packed streets of Amman and Tashkent will be lively with Asia’s debutants determined they are not just here to make up the numbersBefore eagerly awaited meetings with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo comes slightly less glamorous but hugely important first ever World Cup games for Asia’s debutants. Jordan take on Austria on Wednesday before meeting Algeria and Argentina, while Uzbekistan kick off against Colombia, then Portugal and DR Congo.Jordan v Austria has been used as an example of a game that will challenge Fifa’s dynamic pricing system but regardless of how full the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium is, the cafes in Amman’s Prince Muhammad Street and all around the country will be packed. They were a year ago, as fans watched Portugal beat Spain in the Uuefa Nations League final, just three days after the World Cup spot had been secured with the city still buzzing with the thought of Al-Nashama (The Chivalrous Ones) taking on the superstars of the world and … here they are.But while Jordan may be more about team spirit, organisation and counterattacking, they have stars of their own. In the days after qualification, the faces of the big three forwards featured on billboards everywhere you looked, though they have had differing fortunes since.The talismanic striker Yazan al-Naimat is out after a cruciate ligament injury in December and while Ali Olwan, who scored all three in a win over Oman that sealed the World Cup spot, has not played competitively since February, he should be fit to start. Musa al-Taamari, a softly-spoken baker’s son from Amman, is the main man and is used to that role as a rare Jordanian export to Europe, where the fast and hard-working winger has had a fine second season for Rennes. Odeh Fakhoury should start in attack in the absence of Naimat, the 20-year-old scoring his first international goal on 31 May against Switzerland.That was, however, in a 4-1 defeat and was followed by a 2-0 loss to Colombia in San Diego, so there is some concern. The head coach, Jamal Sellami, a firm proponent of 3-4-3, said it was all part of the learning process and the former international goalkeeper Amer Shafi agrees with the taciturn tactician from Morocco.“There is no cause for concern,” said Shafi, who made 179 international appearances for Jordan. “One of the best things about them is losing in order to learn from mistakes and go into the competitive games with sufficient knowledge of the team’s strengths and weaknesses.” Shafi added that he expects Jordan to reach the knockout stage.Jordan are ready for a physical battle and would not have minded taking on their Alpine opponents in hotter and more humid conditions than Silicon Valley can offer. Football is played hard in the country which does not have the riches of some of the neighbours. This team dug deep to get to the final of the 2023 Asian Cup, outclassing South Korea in the semi-final. A repeat of that performance and the cafes of Amman will have a bumper day.And the plov restaurants of Tashkent could enjoy something similar even if it will be breakfast time when Uzbekistan take on Colombia in Mexico City. Asia’s other debutants brought in Fabio Cannavaro as manager soon after sealing their spot. His coaching career is not anything to write back to Naples about, but he did captain his nation to the 2006 World Cup win before returning in 2010 with a dismal first-round exit. Nobody in Central Asia expects the former but a good start and fears of the latter will recede.Like Jordan, Uzbekistan rarely face non-Asian opposition but do have a squad with European experience. Much attention will be on the Manchester City defender Abdukodir Khusanov but there is talent in Abbosbek Fayzullaev, a winger who fought homesickness to go to CSKA Moscow as a teenager before the lack of international football on offer brought a move to Turkey. A good tournament this time could see the 22-year-old move farther west.Since qualifying behind Iran, Uzbekistan have lost 2-1 to Uruguay but defeated Gabon and Egypt before final warm-up defeats to Canada and the Netherlands. The latter came thanks to two penalties from Cody Gakpo with the Liverpool forward scoring the winner in the 99th minute, not long after Uzbekistan had equalised to achieve what they thought was going to be a morale-boosting result. It was an important lesson about concentration and focus.Underestimating the White Wolves would, however, be a mistake. “Uzbeks are tough: people who fight, who never give up,” Cannavaro says. “Playing against them is a pain in the arse. We played Uruguay: we had nine injured players, they weren’t at their best, but my players are tough. It’s not easy to play against them and we only lost 2-1.”The veteran midfielder Jaloliddin Masharipov has a back problem but excitement and optimism remain high. More than Jordan, perhaps, there is a confidence that whatever happens in the next few weeks, this is just the beginning for the former Soviet republic. The rise of Uzbekistan in Asia after independence in 1991 has been fascinating, if little noticed outside. Repeated near misses at the World Cup brought a label of Asia’s chokers but also resulted in investment. Trophies at youth level are translating into senior success.“[It] has not come overnight, and we have produced consistent results over a number of years to emerge as one of the leading Asian football nations,” Otabek Umarov, the first vice-president of Uzbekistan’s Olympic committee, says. “People abroad might not realise, but as the first country from central Asia to qualify for the World Cup, this will be a moment where the entire nation stops to cheer on our heroes.”As it is in Tashkent, so it will be in Amman.

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Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Barney Ronay, Dan Bardell and Sid Lowe as debutants Cape Verde earn a draw against the favourites SpainRate, review, share on Apple Podcasts and join the conversation on email.On the podcast today: their first ever game at a World Cup and Cape Verde hold Spain to a 0-0 draw after an utterly heroic defensive effort. Sid Lowe joins us to ask if this is just an early blip or if Spanish fans should be concerned.Elsewhere in Group H, Saudi Arabia cling on to claim a point against Uruguay. Marcelo Bielsa looks on ruefully from his bucket as his side missed several chances in the second half.In Group G, Belgium need Romelu Lukaku to help them procure a point against Egypt, while New Zealand’s Elijah Just gives them the lead twice but they can’t hold on against Iran.All that, a preview of Tuesday’s action and your questions answered.You can also find Football Weekly on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

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Ghalenoei claims team told to ‘leave immediately’‘We were supposed to stay here tonight to recover’The Iran captain Mehdi Taremi, midfielder Mohammad Mohebi, and head coach Amir Ghalenoei hit out at Fifa and hinted at resentment toward the US government after being told they needed to leave Los Angeles immediately after Monday night’s 2-2 draw against New Zealand in the World Cup.“Everything is like disaster, actually, for us,” said Taremi, who added that Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, visited the team in the dressing room and they expressed their concerns to him directly.Ghalenoei said the way they have been treated by Fifa makes them “the most oppressed” team at the tournament.“After the game today they said to us, ‘You have to leave immediately,’” Ghalenoi said. “Whereas today it’s very important for us to have recovery.“We’ve been asked to get on a plane and return to our camp in Tijuana and we are really troubled by that. They are forcing us to go back early. They are making the situation more and more difficult, more hurdles, but we’re not going to let that stop us from doing our best.“We don’t know why they’re returning us, to be honest. I think it’s very strange. It seems like others are doing the planning for us … We were supposed to arrive two nights before the game but they didn’t permit [it]. We were supposed to stay here tonight to recover and return tomorrow lunchtime.“I think our team is the most oppressed one in the whole World Cup. Our federation isn’t here, our media isn’t here, our management isn’t here.”Infantino went into the Iran dressing room after the game and a video of his message to the squad was shared online, in which Infantino and Ghalenoei exchanged words, via a member of staff translating.“You showed to your families, friends, to your people, to the world, that you’re in the World Cup, that you perform and you have two more games to go,” Infantino said. “In these two games, you will make again everyone in the world proud of what you do. Thank you for being here.“It is also a big, big emotion. I know what you go through, I understand, but you are stronger than everything. You send a strong message to the entire world. Like tonight you united the whole stadium here, you united the whole stadium behind you, behind Team Melli. You are sending such a strong message to the world.“Let me say one more thing: this is just the beginning of the World Cup. You are writing history, the whole world is watching you. Continue to play with your heart, for your people, your families, for your fans and for everyone in the world that is falling in love with Team Melli. You are stronger than everything.”Taremi criticised a logistical situation that has seen the team forced to abandon their planned training base in Tucson, Arizona weeks before the tournament, instead training across the border in Tijuana, Mexico and flying in to the US shortly before games.The team moved its training base to avoid immigration concerns that turned out to be well founded – after arriving in Mexico, 15 of the team’s support staff were denied visas to enter the US, where all of Iran’s group stage games are taking place. That number was later reduced to 11 after some visas were approved.The team still arrived in Los Angeles minus both of their media officers, some analysts, and federation president, Mehdi Taj. Another analyst for the team served as a stand-in media aide for Taremi and Mohebi’s appearance, which a Fifa official repeatedly attempted to stop as both players continued answering questions.“I think it’s not good for the football,” Taremi said. “In [the] World Cup, you have to prepare good for the next game, which is a lot of stress for the players and the staff and everyone. But we don’t have that support, and I think Fifa have to help us more than this. Let’s see what’s going to happen in the future.”Iran faced delays in their travel from Tijuana to Los Angeles, a short trip that Taremi said took five hours. He did not specify what caused the delays, but it was understood that the immigration process was the main cause.Taremi and Mohebi said being forced to leave immediately afterward would negatively affect the players’ performance at the tournament.“It’s supposed to be: tomorrow morning recovery, then we fly to Tijuana, then we return to LA again, but right now we have to go back,” Taremi said.Mohebi added: “Yesterday we came, started the trip in the morning, and we arrive [in the] afternoon, and we directly go to train, and we get tired, you know? I think [it wa] supposed to be, we come here two days before the game. This kind of deal, I think, is not fair … we’re going to get fatigued – hamstring, lower back, glutes …”By contrast, Ghalenoei praised the warmth of co-hosts Mexico and many Mexicans were in attendance supporting Iran at the Los Angeles Stadium.“The Mexican people, the Mexican government, especially the people in Tijuana, made us feel at home,” he said.

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World Cup to generate about 9m tons of carbon dioxideGianni Infantino is planning to attend two World Cup games each day where possible for the rest of the tournament despite the huge distances involved.The Fifa president has access to a private jet provided by Qatar Airways as a value-in-kind element of its sponsorship deal with the world governing body, which will come in useful as Infantino journeys across the United States, Canada and Mexico.After attending the opening game of the tournament in Mexico City last Thursday, Infantino immediately flew on to Guadalajara for South Korea’s victory against Czechia. The next day he was in Los Angeles for the USA’s 4-1 win against Paraguay, before taking in games in San Francisco and Vancouver on Saturday between Qatar and Switzerland and Australia and Turkey respectively.Infantino did not attend a game on Sunday because he was in Miami to host a Fifa summit attended by representatives of their 211 member associations before returning to LA that evening to attend Iran’s first game of the tournament against New Zealand.The current World Cup finals tournament spans four time zones and three countries, with the 16 stadiums up to 2,800 miles apart.Infantino will travel far further than anyone else involved in the tournament. Of the teams, Bosnia and Herzegovina face the most arduous schedule during the group stage, travelling 3,144 miles from Toronto to Los Angeles to Seattle, as well as returning between games to their training camp in Salt Lake City.As a result of the huge distances the New Weather Institute has described this World Cup as “the most polluting event ever”, estimating that it will generate about 9 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Air travel is responsible for about 7.7 million tons of that carbon estimate, more than four times that of the average for World Cups held from 2010 to 2022.

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Bobby Robson employed a head of human performance for the World Cup and, despite wariness, the players got on boardThe eve of Italia 90. Gazza’s tears, England’s heartache, and the cascading emotions of a World Cup that sang and ultimately stung still lie ahead. For now, the sports scientist tasked with acclimatising Bobby Robson’s side to the Italian summer is using cutting-edge technology to assess each player’s fitness: a BBC microcomputer, a dot-matrix printer, and a few clunky Polar heart-rate monitors.Some in the England setup initially regard Prof John Brewer, the Football Association’s first head of human performance, with suspicion. But after monitoring the squad with a bleep test at Lilleshall before they fly to Italy, again when they arrive, and for a third time after a fortnight’s training in the hottest part of the day, Brewer can prove to the players they have adapted to the heat, and can play their familiar high-tempo game.What Brewer helped to pioneer 36 years ago now feels like something from the dark ages. In 2026 England’s players have super-light wearables to track their blood oxygen levels, skin temperatures and sleep, and use hyperbaric chambers for recovery. Yet speaking to Brewer is to relive not just a thrilling World Cup but the moment that English football began to move towards the light.Not that things went entirely smoothly. Before Italia 90, Brewer persuaded Robson that his players needed more carbohydrates before games. Yet he remembers getting a shock when the chef wheeled out a trolley of swordfish steaks hours before their World Cup opener against Ireland.“Bob and I looked at it and said: ‘What on earth is that?’” Brewer recalls. “But the England doctor, John Crane, stood up and said: “I want to give the boys what they want.’ We told him that it was not the time or the place. But the attitude from the medical team was to ignore the evolving sports science. It had been accepted in other sports, particularly running, but football saw itself as different.”That attitude applied to alcohol, too. Robson banned booze from two weeks before Italia 90, but allowed players the odd drink on occasions. But that didn’t stop a couple of stars – Brewer refuses to name them – breaking curfew and drinking far more than allowed.According to Brewer most of the England players who had played abroad, including Chris Waddle and Trevor Steven, were more receptive to nutritional advice. Surprisingly Paul Gascoigne, who got down to around 10% body fat for Italia 90, was also a temporary convert. “I think he probably was the fittest he was in his career,” he says. “Gazza was quite stocky in build and there’d been a bit of criticism about his weight. But when he came to Lilleshall, I measured his body fat, and the results spoke for themselves. He didn’t have a high body-fat percentage compared to the rest of the squad.”Brewer also remembers having lots of one-to-one conversations with Gascoigne because he needed reassurance about his diet. “Yes, he was the life and soul of the party and the other lads used to play up to that, but he was fully professional – football was everything to him,” he adds.Brewer’s background working with high-level athletes at Loughborough, including the double Olympic champion Seb Coe, meant that Robson and his coaches largely bought into his suggestions about training. At the time they were unusual. Now, though, they are commonplace. They included getting players to warm up without the ball at first to raise body temperature and increase muscle flexibility. “Because at the time it was a case of: ‘Let’s just knock the ball about a bit and then do a few little doggies’ – as they liked to call them – ‘or sprints and we’re ready to go,’” he says.Brewer also suggested getting substitutes to stretch and warm up at regular intervals, rather than sitting down all game. And he also wanted squad players to train harder between matches to maintain their fitness – something from which David Platt benefited when he replaced the injured Bryan Robson. Sometimes Brewer’s suggestions were even more basic: when he first joined, England players tended not to drink anything on the bus back from training. So he would mix up electrolyte drinks and give it to them in plastic cups.However, Brewer’s fondest memories are for Bobby Robson, whom he admired deeply as a person and a manager, and brought him into the England setup. This was the era where the FA’s director of coaching Charles Hughes was pushing for England to play a more direct style based on research showing most goals were scored after fewer than five passes, yet Robson had the reputation and smarts to follow a more enlightened path.“It was a strange dynamic between them,” he says. “Charles was very much into his statistical analysis about the need to play a long‑ball game, which I think was quite flawed, but while Bobby listened and took on board the stuff around preparation, fitness, training and nutrition, he did his own thing when it came to football.“In the end Charles left the FA as a frustrated, disillusioned character. I’m sure to his dying day, he believed that had his ideas been fully accepted England would have won a World Cup in 1994, 1998 or 2002.”Brewer is now retired but still follows football and sports science closely. “Players are fitter nowadays. They have to pay even more attention to their training and diet because the frequency of high-intensity games is much higher than it ever has been.”But as he notes, they have a lot more help too. “When I set up the FA human performance centre, clubs used to send their players to us for their pre‑season sport science and fitness testing. From July onwards we would get three or four teams a week, including the likes of Liverpool. Obviously that would never happen today because they’ve got their own teams of people.”“And when it came to testing, I had a BBC microcomputer, a dot-matrix printer, and a couple of very ancient Polar heart-rate monitors that I had to download individually in order to get the data. We thought it was cutting edge. But compared to today it was pretty basic stuff.”

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What, really, were the emotions flowing through the veins of Iran’s players as they took to the pitch in Los Angeles? A few hours earlier Donald Trump, in France before the G7 summit, said a peace deal had been signed. A penny for the thoughts, too, of the Fifa president up in the VIP seats, Gianni Infantino, who in effect admitted he was powerless to prevent Iran from the chaos that has overshadowed their participation.Finally, then, for 101 minutes against New Zealand at least, Iran’s players were able to focus on the football, just as their head coach, Amir Ghalenoei, vowed they would. Goals from Mohammad Mohebbi and Ramin Rezaeian cancelled out a smart Eli Just double. The cue of a partisan crowd provided the kind of joy Iran captain Mehdi Taremi conceded had been missing in recent months.With the Hollywood hills visible from parts of this spectacular stadium, covered by a teardrop-shaped canopy underneath which there is a wraparound LED chandelier, Iran did not seem bogged down by political baggage. After all, this was arguably the most politically supercharged sporting event in history, given the hurdles Iran overcame just to take to the field in Los Angeles – this was the first of three Group G games in the USA, the country with which Iran has been at war with since February. Eleven Iran officials were refused entry to the US, prompting them to relocate their team base from Arizona to Tijuana, Mexico. Their training programme was delayed.Then there is the volatility of Iranian politics and the associated infighting. There are hundreds of thousands of Iranian-Americans based in the area of town tagged “Tehrangeles”, home to the biggest population of Iranians outside of Iran, many of whom fled religious and political persecution. But there is division among Iranians, some of whom protested outside the team hotel and outside the stadium here with clear messages against the Islamic Republic; one activist said the regime has turned athletes into mouthpieces, others referred to Iran’s government as terrorists.The backdrop made for a few different sights on the open-top bus tour of the city in the hours before kick-off. Protestors carried the pre-revolutionary flag of Iran, sold merchandise with the controversial sun and lion emblem, portraits of the former shah of Persia. On the day of the game a Fifa ban on the flags was upheld by a judge after a lawsuit was filed to LA’s superior court. While Fifa’s code of conduct prohibits materials of “political, offensive and/or discriminatory nature”, several carried the flags into the ground unchallenged; one couple were asked to simply remove the sticks attached to them. Iran’s sports minister, Ahmad Donyamali, had been quoted as saying their players would abandon the match if they heard political slogans in the ground.But inside this spectacular stadium, there was little in the way of opposition. From the moment Taremi exchanged pennants with Chris Wood, the support for Iran was overwhelmingly positive. Unlike in their opening game in Qatar four years ago, Iran sang the national anthem, which in itself is a divisive issue. Iran, all in white against the All Whites, made a fast start but trailed on seven minutes when Just juggled the ball in the box and wellied it past Alireza Beiranvand. It was a fine move that stemmed from Wood controlling on his chest a long kick downfield by the Millwall goalkeeper Max Crocombe. Wood and Just then combined in the box, the latter taking the ball away from Ali Nemati with his left boot and then smacking in with the laces of his right.A loose contest meant plenty of openings. Shahriar Moghanloo made, surely, a goal-saving block, taking the ball off the toes of Wood after the Nottingham Forest striker wound up a shot and Taremi cracked an effort against the post after soaring to the edge of the 18-yard box from inside his own half. Iran levelled when Rezaeian poked in, the 36-year-old rewarded for burning towards goal after sending a delightful pass infield with the outside of his right foot. Saman Ghoddos’s first-time pass into Moghanloo was sumptuous and while Moghanloo couldn’t convert, Rezaeian ghosted past Michael Boxall to send his shot past Crocombe.It always felt unlikely the goals would stop there and Just scored his and his country’s second 10 minutes into the second half. He again dovetailed with Wood and while Wood screamed for the Motherwell striker to square, he coolly dinked the ball over Beiranvand. New Zealand again failed to hold on to their lead, Mohebbi heading in via a post nine minutes later after finding himself unmarked between centre-backs Boxall and Finn Surman. Mohebbi celebrated by putting his hands out as if to say: Well, how about that, then? That feeling was shared at the final whistle.

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Fifa’s embrace of rapacious American capitalism may have found its limits in Miami, one of the entertainment capitals of the world.Despite just seven tickets showing as available on their official website at kick-off there were thousands of empty seats – and empty concourses – throughout most of this game, a hard-fought draw which leaves Group H deadlocked following Cape Verde’s stunning draw with Spain earlier in the day.Gianni Infantino has famously attempted to portray the World Cup as 104 Super Bowls, although judging by this turnout the locals require some convincing. While the official attendance was given as 62,764 out of a capacity of 64,478, many did not turn up until the second half, with Fifa sources claiming that a crash on the highway was responsible for the late arrivals.Miami has more Instagram influencers per capita than Los Angeles and New York, which suggests that Fifa should have recruited some of them to help shift tickets rather than the ubiquitous IShowSpeed, whose hyperactivity has begun to irritate some A-list guests in Fifa’s VVIP areas.As their city is built on celebrity and glamour Miami residents are not easily impressed, and even sports fans are spoilt for choice.The Hard Rock Stadium has hosted six Super Bowls and is a regular staging post on the Formula One circuit, so a group stage World Cup game featuring two goal-shy sides was never going to be a red letter day.The empty seats also showed the potential pitfalls of Fifa’s reliance on another US staple, the secondary ticketing market, as there is no doubt the tickets were sold.Given that the face value of category one and two tickets was $430 and $600 respectively it appears unlikely there were thousands of deliberate no-shows, with a more plausible scenario being that tickets snapped up by speculative opportunists were not sold on.Uruguay deserved their point after coming from behind, as they controlled for all but the last 10 minutes of the first half when Abdulelah al-Amri gave Saudi Arabia the lead against the run of play.Uruguay’s preparations for the game had been disrupted by a delay to the flight from Cancún to Fort Lauderdale, in the latest example of the potential pitfalls of staging a multi-country World Cup, but their travel problems did not appear to have had any lasting effect.As one would expect from a Marcelo Bielsa side they dominated possession from the outset and created a good chance in just the fifth minute, when Federico Vinas’s cross from the left was met by Ronald Araújo, whose shot was saved by goalkeeper Mohammed al-Owais.There was a polite enquiry for a penalty in the 20th minute when Sebastián Cáceres shot struck the hand of Hassan al-Tambakti, but his arm was clearly by his side and their best chance of the first half fell to Vinas, whose low diving header went straight at Owais.Cheered on loudly by an impressive showing of fans clad in green, Saudi Arabia hung in the game and got their reward just before half-time.Amri had already brought an excellent save from Fernando Muslera with a powerful header from a corner in the 38th minute before he gave his side the lead from another set-piece three minutes later.Musab al-Juwayr’s cross was met by a header from Tambakti, which Muslera parried, with Amri quickest to react by tapping into the net. Muslera will have been annoyed that he did not catch the ball cleanly, as was Bielsea judging by his thunderous expression on the sidelines.Bielsa responded by making two changes at half-time, including removing Darwin Núñez, who even allowing for the hot and humid conditions had looked off the pace throughout.In fairness to the former Liverpool striker he has only played two matches – both for Uruguay in March – since February, when he was deregistered by Saudi Pro League club Al-Hilal following their signing of Karim Benzema.Bielsa also moved Federico Valverde to a more central role after he had been largely anonymous wide on the right during the first half, a tactical switch which made a difference as Uruguay’s dominance returned.Saudi Arabia defended stoically however, and limited their opponents to half-chances from crosses. Vinas and the substitute Agustín Canobbio both headed wide, while Owais made another good save from Manuel Ugarte, whose shot from the right was pushed onto the far post.Uruguay continued to attack down the flanks, though, and an equaliser that felt inevitable arrived in the 80th minute. Mathías Olivera’s cross was headed towards goal by Vinas, Owais failed to catch the ball, and Maxi Araújo reacting quickest with a neat side-footed finish at the near post.Owais made amends in injury time however, making two good saves from Nicolás de la Cruz and Valverde.After dropping two points Spain were the real winners from this result, and will aim to capitalise when they face Saudi Arabia in Atlanta. Uruguay return here to face Cape Verde on Sunday, which will also present another test of Fifa’s sales strategy.

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There have now been five matches without defeat for Asian sides at this World Cup after the draw between Saudi Arabia and Uruguay. Jonathan Wilson had already pondered even before the game in Miami whether these are early signs that the continent is a rising force in football, with Iran out to add to the evidence when they face New Zealand.double quotation markAFC teams have in the past perhaps been guilty of lacking belief against Uefa sides, but no longer. Japan celebrated the equaliser as any side that has snatched a draw should, but the disappointment when they fell behind was clear. First and second in this group play second and first in the Brazil, Morocco, Scotland, Haiti group. It’s an indication of how far both Morocco and Japan have come that it’s not at all clear that it would be easier to face them than Brazil or the Netherlands.