⚽️ Kick-off time: 1pm local/2pm EDT/7pm BST/4am AEST
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If Mo Salah scores tonight, he’ll tie his coach Hossam Hassan’s Egyptian record of 69 international goals. The 34-year-old team captain has appeared in 119 appearances for the Pharaohs; Hassan reached his total after 177 caps. And while we’re on the subject of the Egypt coach, here’s a must-read piece on his close ties with the country’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the military general whose “security apparatus has infiltrated every aspect of civilian life” … including football.
For Australia it’s simple. Coach Tony Popovic names the same starting XI as he did against Paraguay.
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Chelsea and Manchester United have shown interest
Fulham could prove a more realistic destination
Fulham have joined the race to sign Crysencio Summerville from West Ham. The winger is expected to move this summer and is attracting interest from a host of Premier League clubs.
Chelsea and Manchester United have been monitoring Summerville, who is likely to leave West Ham following their relegation from the Premier League, but it remains to be seen whether the Netherlands international earns a move to one of the top flight’s leading sides.
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Les Bleus’ thrilling front four is built on the spirit the head coach has fostered in his squad, allowing them to be both secure and adventurous
It was a striking image, the picture that best captured France’s World Cup campaign to this point. Not the one that caught Michael Olise in full flight as he executed a perfect bicycle kick that only sprang ungratefully off a Swedish post. Nor the one of the squad posing together on their private jet, turqoise hoods drawn tight to their chins. Instead it was the one of the hug, first between Kylian Mbappé and Didier Deschamps, and then with the rest of the squad too, as they celebrated the opening goal of their 3-0 last 32 victory over Sweden in a purposeful manner.
Deschamps said later that Mbappé’s dash towards the technical area had “touched me deeply”. The head coach had briefly stepped back from his duties the week before to grieve the loss of his mother. Mbappé and the squad had wanted publicly to show how much he meant to them. “The group is united,” Deschamps said. “They delivered when I was away and now I’m back, they know I’m here 100%. Team spirit doesn’t win you matches but it can help you lose them. The collective strength is above everything and Kylian is the best shining example.”
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England play in Mexico City on Sunday, 2,240m above sea level, and research shows high-speed running is harder and recovery is slower
England have made it into the last 16 of the World Cup, and will face Mexico on Sunday (1am Monday BST). But they will also be up against another opponent: altitude.
We take a look at how playing in the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, 2,240m above sea level, might affect their performance.
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Before Football Daily’s inbox is flooded by an angry reader with fingers busier than Arsenal fans at a Viktor Gyökores lookalike contest, we would like to shout from the rooftops that Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the greatest male football players of all time. How far up or down that list is another matter, but there is no denying his place at the top table of our sport. Clutch moments, sublime bits of skill and athleticism, a trophy cabinet big enough to holiday in: Ronaldo has done (almost) everything for club and country. But time waits for no man.
Football died a bit yesterday, didn’t it? No one actually saw the ball touch Igor Matanovic’s head for Croatia against Portugal. The ball’s trajectory didn’t change significantly, even the ball’s spin didn’t change. Yet the computer sensor felt something, and thus we must all bow to it. What’s objective to a machine is more objective than our own sense apparatus. This feels momentous – not a ‘paradigm shift’ or anything so dramatic, but it does encapsulate in a neat anecdote how our attitude to technology has been changing over the decades, how we feel happier and happier to delegate important decisions to it, how we become, in a literal way, ever more irresponsible. The GWC, as several of your own writers have already described it, is a weirdly warped microcosm of the world at large. And what happened yesterday can be read as a very ill omen” – Fábio Ribeiro.
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On the first anniversary of Diogo Jota's death, Caoimhin Kelleher, Arne Slot, Nuno Espirito Santo, Conor Coady and Paulo Goncalves share their memories of the former Liverpool and Wolves forward.
Julian Quinones' path to being a Mexican hero has been unorthodox - and he will hope to become a legend against England on Monday morning.
BBC Sport·
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