Neville fury over FIFA ‘dictatorship’ breathes life into historic Switzerland v Qatar game | OneFootball

The common and cliched refrain is that the World Cup doesn’t really start until Brazil join the party. But in reality the fever only actually exhibits symptoms once the brilliant biennial drinking game of ‘Which club does Ricardo Rodriguez play for?’ commences.

Real Betis, apparently.

In Breel Embolo, that proud Swiss tradition of temporarily ceasing to exist before emerging every couple of years for a reliably solid if inevitably unspectacular major international tournament is in safe hands.

Rennes, before anyone asks.

If the impossibly-only-29-year-old ever fancies taking his illusory club career to Qatar, these 90 minutes suggest he might make a killing. Beyond a penalty that means Embolo has now scored at four consecutive European Championships and World Cups, this was a masterclass in centre-forward play.

Embolo had four shots, and of his six accurate passes, five set up a shot for a team-mate. Denis Zakaria, Ruben Vargas and Michel Aebischer took turns wasting the chances he set up with some sublime hold-up play, deft touches and a wonderful clarity of thought that a perplexed Qatar could otherwise not counter.

Yet the longer Switzerland played with their food, the greater the sense was that it might bite back. Just as this World Cup seemed to be starting the same way as the last for Murat Yakin’s group favourites – 1-0 (Embolo) – there was a stoppage-time reminder that Qatar actually qualified for this tournament instead of being handed a golden ticket.

Boualem Khoukhi’s header was as totemically excellent as the one Embolo won in the build-up to Switzerland’s penalty award, and no less decisive. Julen Lopetegui’s men stayed in the game just long enough to maximise their moment and earn a first World Cup point in their history.

That will be the story. And FIFA will breathe a sigh of relief.

A battling Qatar draw is something of a headline, a distraction. A routine and predictable Switzerland win would have been lost in what will surely definitely absolutely be the only VAR controversy of this World Cup.

“There is a massive question mark over that,” said Gary Neville of the Switzerland penalty award. Not of outstanding Qatar keeper Mahmoud Abunada’s foul on Remo Freuler, but the two potential offsides immediately before it, neither of which were cleared up by a replay or lines drawn by whatever the American equivalent of robots in Stockley Park are.

Freuler certainly looked offside from Embolo’s knockdown. And the lack of any evidence to suggest otherwise was bizarre, called out by refereeing expert Christina Unkel on commentary too.

“Why aren’t FIFA showing us when there’s already such distrust for them?” Neville added. “It’s a dictatorship this: the idea that they hold this data internally and not show fans, it’s absolutely ridiculous.

“Honestly to not show the evidence of an offside. Prove to us it’s offside. Show it straight away. Why not the transparency?”

It didn’t bring to mind Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong, it must be said. But it wasn’t difficult to understand Neville’s point: FIFA not showing their working out to a thoroughly debatable answer was strange at best, and deeply problematic at worst.

Perhaps not to the extent of posting a picture of Matt Le Tissier deep in conspiratorial thought while asking where FIFA’s headquarters are, but still. Weird.

Switzerland sleepwalking through this game so much so that they substituted Rodriguez in a World Cup game for the first time ever in his record 13th tournament appearance should just about drown those questions out until FIFA do something else hilariously and avoidably dumb, probably in the very next game.

Brazil, is it? Bloody well better be after that slog.