TORONTO, June 26 (Reuters) – Senegal kept their \u2060World Cup knockout hopes alive in dominant fashion on Friday with a 5-0 victory over 10-man Iraq, who \u2060were eliminated from the tournament.<\/p>\n
Survival was on the line as both sides entered the match needing to win \u200cto stay in the hunt for one of the last eight spots in the round of 32.<\/p>\n
Substitute Papa Gueye was barely on the field for three minutes when he unleashed a stunning 84 kph strike from distance before adding another cracking shot recorded at 103 kph.<\/p>\n
“I think he was very motivated,” Senegal \u200bcoach Pape Thiaw said of Gueye. “He wanted to serve his country and he \u2060scored two goals so we must congratulate him.”<\/p>\n
SENEGAL \u2060COME ALIVE IN SECOND HALF<\/p>\n
Senegal took an early lead through a deflected goal off Habib Diarra but failed to capitalise after \u2060Iraq \u200cdefender Rebin Sulaka was sent off in the 13th minute for a foul on Sadio Mane following a VAR review.<\/p>\n
But Thiaw\u2019s men took charge in the second half and began their goal fest when Ismaila Sarr scored his fourth career \u2060World Cup goal to become the country\u2019s all-time leading scorer at the tournament.<\/p>\n
Gueye \u200bstruck twice and Iliman Ndiaye fired \u200ca rocket into the back of the net to cap off a five-star performance for Senegal, and their green-clad \u2060supporters began to chant \u201cSenegal! \u200bSenegal!\u201d as the clock wound down.<\/p>\n
Despite bouncing back from back-to-back defeats by France and Norway with a strong display, Thiaw said his team could be better after a “difficult” first half.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though we scored five goals, there are still improvements to be made,\u201d Thiaw told reporters.<\/p>\n
Senegal finished third in \u2060Group I with three points, behind France and Norway. Iraq were bottom \u200bwith zero points.<\/p>\n
The African side must wait until the group stage ends on Saturday to see if they are one of the eight best third-placed teams who will advance to the round of 32.<\/p>\n
IRAQ ELIMINATED AFTER THREE LOSSES<\/p>\n
Down a man for most of the \u2060game, Iraq could not escape Senegal\u2019s relentless pressure and the possibility of a comeback quickly slipped from their grasp.<\/p>\n
Zidane Iqbal displayed a great bit of skill to keep possession just outside his own box but Camara managed to come away with the ball, burst forward and lay a pass across the six-yard box for a sliding Sarr to poke home.<\/p>\n
Iraq, making their second World Cup \u200bappearance and first in 40 years, will go home without a point.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an amazing \u2060experience, but I want to apologise (to) our fans, (to) our nations,\u201d defender Merchas Doski said. \u201cThese three games, we didn’t learn from our mistakes.”<\/p>\n
Iraq \u200bcoach Graham Arnold said Sulaka\u2019s “stupid” early red card made it even tougher for the \u200cteam to perform against a top side like Senegal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith 11 \u200bmen, it would have been hard enough as it was, let alone having 10 men for that long,\u201d Arnold said.<\/p>\n
( Reporting by Nicole Fernandes in Toronto, additional reporting by Frank Pingue and Bhargav Acharya, editing by Ed Osmond)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO, June 26 (Reuters) – Senegal kept their \u2060World Cup knockout hopes alive in dominant fashion on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-762559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}