It’s your World Cup debut. You’re playing Germany. The eyes of the world are on you and it’s the biggest moment of your career by some distance. You concede seven goals.
It would be quite easy to be disheartened by that, but not if you happen to be Eloy Room, which, let’s face it, you probably aren’t.
The Curaçao goalkeeper was in inspired form against Ecuador on Saturday, making an astonishing 15 saves as the Blue Wave (more like the Blue Save), earned their first ever World Cup point, and Room etched his own name in the history books.
France take to the pitch again on Monday, facing Iraq as Kylian Mbappé prepares to earn his 100th cap. A victory, though, would bring another impressive stat for head coach Didier Deschamps, which we’ll also tell you about.
Today’s Ask Opta question is all about ball-in-play time, while our Missing Players quiz takes us back to Italia ’90.
📊 STAT - Deschamps Could Equal Schön
Didier Deschamps and the FIFA World Cup go together like moules et frites.
The longest-serving head coach at these finals, having taken over the French men’s national team in July 2012, Deschamps is one of only three individuals to have won the FIFA World Cup both as a player and as a head coach, alongside Brazil’s Mário Zagallo and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer.
He captained France to victory in 1998, featuring in six of their seven matches, and later guided Les Bleus to the title as head coach in 2018.
In leading the French side into this tournament, it is Deschamps’ fourth World Cup as a head coach, a tally that only Carlos Alberto Parreira (6) and Bora Milutinović (5) have bettered.