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Senegal’s Kalidou Koulibaly, left, battles Norway’s Erling Haaland for the ball during their Group I match on Monday. Senegal needs a win over Iraq and to score multiple goals to boost its chances of being selected as a third-place team to advance to the knockout round.Yuki Iwamura/The Associated Press
Senegal captain Kalidou Koulibaly pulled few punches after Monday’s 3-2 loss to Norway left his team’s World Cup hopes hanging by a thread.
“Today, I made a lot of mistakes and that’s a real shame,” Koulibaly told reporters after a match in which he was personally culpable for two, if not all three goals. His coach, Pape Thiaw, responded to his skipper’s struggles by hauling him off with 19 minutes remaining to give his team a fighting chance of getting a point.
Ismaïla Sarr’s stoppage-time goal was too little, too late though, and Senegal fell to a second straight defeat to leave it pointless after two games at the World Cup, and in need of something of a miracle to qualify as one of the best third-place teams.
It’s a precipitous fall from grace for a squad that entered the tournament ranked 15th in the world – the second-highest of the African qualifiers behind Morocco – and still claiming to be African champions.
The claim has some merit, at least until the various courts of appeal decide whether to permanently award the title to Morocco, which was handed a 3-0 walkover win in January’s final after most of Senegal’s players left the pitch in protest at a controversial penalty decision. They went on to win the match 1-0 in extra time.
“Everyone is surprised today because it’s true that we are the African champions,” said Thiaw on Thursday. “But today, as you know, in two games, two defeats, but we will keep on working hard, because it’s not over yet. We still have one game to play.”
That game arrives Friday in Toronto against Iraq, the world’s 57th-ranked side. Both teams are sitting at the bottom of Group I with zero points, but Senegal will be counting on a big win to not only give it three points, but also to help overturn its problematic minus-three goal differential. Thiaw and Co. will hope that is enough for Senegal to claw its way into the knockout rounds.
“We’re actually playing a sort of final tomorrow with Senegal and Iraq,” he said, “because we both were defeated, and if you want to stay in the competition, we need to win this game.”
Already without veteran goalkeeper Édouard Mendy, who picked up a knee injury in the loss to Norway, Senegal will need more from two of its oldest and most experienced players: Koulibaly and Sadio Mané, the country’s all-time leading scorer.
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Senegal defender Mamadou Sarr (2) is a fan favourite of Senegal supporters. The 20-year-old showed well in the African Cup of Nations.Scott Kinser/The Associated Press
Some experienced observers believe that Senegal actually played better without its 35-year-old captain at the African Cup of Nations during the two games for which he was suspended, particularly in the final when he was replaced by 20-year-old Chelsea centre back Mamadou Sarr. Certainly it’s hard to believe that Sarr – who is yet to play at this World Cup – would fare much worse than Koulibaly, who served up a misplaced pass for Norway’s first goal on Monday, before being eviscerated by the pace of Erling Haaland for the other two.
However, Thiaw wasn’t about to be drawn on the fate of his most experienced centre back the day before his team’s do-or-die World Cup decider.
“We know how intense games are,” said Thiaw, who played for Senegal at the World Cup in 2002, when it reached the quarter-final.
“It’s not always easy to overcome the challenges, and we saw that he was suffering from whatever was going on on the pitch, and for some players, well, it’s harder, and it’s the reason why we just decided to make a substitution.”
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Whether he is back in the starting lineup on Friday, only time will tell, although Thiaw – perhaps drawing inspiration from Jesse Marsch’s Big Book of World Cup decoys – added that Koulibaly has been training and is ready for the match.
As a team that will be chasing goals, Senegal could also do with something extra from Mané, who despite his 55 goals in his country’s colours, has only one goal at the World Cup, scored in Russia eight years ago (he missed all four of Senegal’s games in Qatar through injury).
The 34-year-old has shown he can still produce in pressure situations, scoring the decisive goal in the AFCON semi-final against Egypt. He’s also shown he can keep a cool head too, with Mané the one who did most to get his players to return to the pitch after their walk-off protest in the tournament’s final.
Despite the urgency of the situation, the players feel ready to handle whatever comes their way. As left back Ismail Jacobs describes, the team was well aware that it could end up this situation, opening the World Cup against France – “probably the best team in the competition” – and then Norway.
But despite the predicament, he is ready to roll up his sleeves.
“I think everyone in this team is used to handling pressure,” he said. “I mean, we played the AFCON final in Morocco, every one of us played already big games.
“It’s going to be pressure, but I think in a good way, and yeah, in the end we just need to handle it.”
