While in one of the final matches of Group I, the French and the reserve Norwegians they entered the field for the first place in the group, in advance it seemed that the last match would only be about the honorable position for Senegal and Iraq. The African team, on the other hand, knew that if they scored enough goals, they would start with good chances in the competition for the third place in the group, and they took this quite seriously, they managed to improve their goal difference of -3 to +2, winning 5-0. Iraq ended the tournament with 0 points, a goal difference even worse than Tunisia.
Senegal quickly showed that they have a much better chance in this match, they were able to kick the second corner in the 4th minute and took the lead from it, Abdoulaye Seck headed in a goal from Lamine Camara’s pass. In the 10th minute, Rebin Szulaka made a big mistake, his headed ball bounced in front of Sadio Mané, who could have clearly exited the game. The referee initially showed him a yellow, but after watching some video, decided that the Iraqi prevented an obvious goal-scoring opportunity and sent him off. A few minutes later, they claimed the same thing on the other side, after Seck knocked down the outbound Ali al-Hamadi, but he was not the last defender here, so he escaped with a yellow card.
Iraq changed because of the exhibition, and from here it was obvious that they would be mainly busy with defense, which they didn’t do badly, Senegal had a really dangerous situation in the first half, Ismail Jakobs’ shot missed the goal. Mané also had a good attempt, but even though he created a good shooting position for himself, the ball went wide. Due to a lot of care and video, the referee extended nine minutes, but not much happened in that either, so the score remained 1-0. Despite the man advantage, the Senegalese weren’t particularly sharp either, even though they obviously knew that they needed a few more goals to have a chance to advance.
In the second half, Iraq was forced to change goalkeepers, Jalal Hasan replaced Ahmed Baszil, who was nursed for several minutes after a big fall, and Senegal switched up and created several great chances in ten minutes. First, Mané could shoot, but he missed the goal, then Ismaïla Sarr shot it into the Iraqi goalkeeper, who was able to save quite easily. A little later, however, Sarr already scored, after a release Zídán Ikbál started to scramble unnecessarily and lost the ball, which was punished by Senegal. A few minutes later, after another turnover, the newly introduced Pape Gueye bombed a huge goal roughly from 18 meters,
thus, Senegal already led 3-0, and with a zero goal difference, suddenly rose to fifth place among the third in the group.
The tiring Iraq should have lasted another half hour so that the defeat would not be even more humiliating, but it seemed that with 10 men they simply could not keep up with the pace, they spent most of their time focused on their goal. And Pape Gueye punished again in the 71st minute and scored the Senegalese’s fourth goal with another huge push. Three minutes later, Mané’s missed shot almost went in, but he was unlucky, the ball ended up hitting the post. And it wasn’t over yet, Iliman Ndiaye, who also came on as a substitute, came in with a huge goal so that Gueye wasn’t the only one to have big bombs in the match.
Senegal even pushed for the end, Hassan had to make two big saves in overtime, but Iraq eventually held out without another goal, leaving the score 5-0. The Iraqi national team suffered its biggest World Cup defeat in its history, but the Senegalese could be happy, because they are already ahead of South Korea and Scotland among the third places in the group. Now they only have to worry about two more teams from the remaining five groups finishing with 3 points and a worse goal difference – if that happens, they will also go on. In the other game of the group the French beat him with the fastest hat-trick of the World Cup the Norwegians.
