World Cup 2018: France v Australia buildup and Messi enters fray – live!

About last night...

L’Equipe being a bit harsh on the Portuguese here or no? I thought Guerrero and Cedric were decent myself.

While we wait for that team news, some ‘avoiding familial responsibilities so I can watch four matches of football’ stories:

Jason ‘improper’ Conduct writes: “Shamefully left the children with the wife today as I travel to Brighton for a 40th. Stopping at a mate’s in London on way down to watch the first two and then some smart train timetabling should get me to Brighton in time for the others. My military planning will come under supreme duress tomorrow when I try to watch all 3 games while coping with a raging hangover, a Sunday rail network and Father’s Day. Wish me luck!”

Luck be upon you Jason

Meanwhile, in Slovakia, here’s Pavol Lukac: “Well it is pretty simple: Up since 6am to do all the chores like shopping and lawn cutting, then it comes to finishing touches in the living room. World cup haters around have been made aware of the fact the living room is occupied till 10:30pm. Admittedly, I heard the word “weirdo” a few times, but well, apart from that not much resistance. They were advised to spend the day outdoors (or wherever), it is a decent day in Bratislava”

I’m in the market for more at paul.macinnes@theguardian.com and they don’t all have to be from men neither...

Waiting for team news like

Fair comment

lancaster43

16 June 2018 8:45am

Let’s just take a moment to enjoy this thigh- emphasising shorts customisation once more

If I stand around my local playing field tugging my shorts up at the sides the local constabulary want a word with me. Ronaldo does it and he's described as Magnifico.

Where's the justice?

How are you watching four games in one day?

Or for the Australians amongst us, four games in two days?

On my groupchat pals are already trying to devise ways of hiding children in order to enjoy the FULL EXPERIENCE.

I want to hear your plans for football maximisation - send them to paul.macinnes@theguardian.com

Heartwarming World Cup content alert

First off a quick repost for Stuart James’s cracker of a piece hanging with those Peruvians on pilgrimage. Stu loves the Colombians the best but it looks like the Machu Picchu massive are rising in his affections.

Then there’s this. A short video of children at a school in Montevideo as Jose Gimenez’s late winner against Egypt crashed into the net yesterday. This is what football can do

Hallo all. Let’s just take a moment to enjoy this thigh- emphasising shorts customisation once more

I mean, that’s not done to enhance sporting performance is it

And with that, I’ll take my leave and put you in the capable hands of my colleague Paul MacInnes. He’ll steer you through until kick-off in Kazan. Thanks for your company today, until next time.

Nigeria’s Bryan Idowu, who grew up in St Petersburg, talks to Nick Ames about hearing monkey chants, being chased by skinheads, how he deals with it all and how the country has changed. The majority will be “welcoming, positive and fun,” he says.

This is just in from Barney Ronay. What a glorious opening to a piece on iconography:

Moscow is a fascinating place to enter for the first time, its fringes marked by an endless scroll of huge stickle-brick buildings and gaudy roadside shopping complexes. Heading in from this angle, before the austere majesty of the city centre, it seems the chief beneficiary of Russia’s great opening out was that well-known US imperialist Colonel Sanders, who can be seen grinning down like Lenin’s crispy-fried southern gentleman cousin from his endless lighted placards, impassive, stoical and oddly comforting.

Meanwhile, England fans have been arriving in Volgograd. They have so far been abiding by strict warnings not to drape flags on second world war monuments, which seems like a good thing.

Here’s Rob, one of the fans on the ground. “I got gassed in Marseille. But I think Vladimir Putin doesn’t want it to kick off here so I think it will be all right.” Excellent news. More from Martha Kelner here:

We all know that racism simply doesn’t exist in Russia, but despite that irrefutable fact, there have nevertheless been concerns in the buildup to the tournament, with the opening Group D fixture between Croatia and Nigeria a potential flash point for said non-existent racism. The Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent, Shaun Walker, reports from Kaliningrad on persisting concerns over how seriously officials are taking the problem.

It’s just after 9:30am in Kazan and French fans are up and about, with three-and-a-half hours to go before kick-off.

Meet Mystic Marcus, the prognosticating pig. He predicted Trump would win the election and has a 100% record, so it’s almost certain one of Belgium, Argentina, Nigeria and Uruguay will win the World Cup, after he ate those nations’ flags.

Please make this stop.

Fans in Australia got a bit hot under the collar last night as they attempted to watch the Egypt v Uruguay game and the service provided by telco Optus failed. Many fans (me included) were left frustrated by the spinning wheel of doom on their screens which frequently interrupted the coverage. Optus has since apologised for the glitch, which was “due to an extremely high number of viewers logging into our platforms just before kick-off”. To be fair, how could they possibly have foreseen such a large number of people they had sold a product to would have wanted to use said product at the same time? Deary me.

Today’s Guardian Sport front page:

This is a great piece, from Paul Doyle, on the France midfielder Blaise Matuidi.

“I think of 2002, for example, when we had players such as [David] Trezeguet and [Thierry] Henry, who were young and went into the tournament in incredible form but it was a failure. So we have to be careful.”

What of the French? We heard Marcel Desailly’s opinion yesterday, but a lot of talk has centred on how youthful their squad is – the youngest at this World Cup. Can they gel and put together a deep run in Russia or will inexperience be their downfall? “It is not a risk,” Didier Deschamps said. “Those young people are there, and if I have selected them it is because they are good for the team. They are here because they have the quality to be here.”

Fox Sports have just gone live to Kazan, where Daniel Garb and Adam Peacock are with fans, decked out in green and gold, and both are keen to tell us that Darryl Braithwaite was there last night, singing Horses and doing “shoeys”. So keen they tell us about three times.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was on the phone with some of the players last night, apparently. Cue a pretty cringeworthy interaction with Mark Milligan and then Tim Cahill, to whom Turnbull says, “You make a habit of scoring goals at the World Cup, I understand?” Eek. Cahill’s good about it, to be fair, and thanks the PM for getting behind the team.

Van Marwijk, who guided Saudi Arabia to qualification for these finals, before quitting his post much in the same way as Ange Postecoglou did with Australia, has had just four games to get to know his new players – not a great deal of time to settle on a starting lineup, with particular questions over the setup of the midfield. As such a cloud has been hovering over captain Mile Jedinak’s head, and his withdrawal from yesterday’s press conference would, on the face of it, suggest he will have to settle for a place on the bench in Kazan. Van Marwijk’s having none of that though and, clearly unaware that Fifa rules state that a player from the starting lineup must attend the final presser, he said, “I will not say anything about the line-up because the players don’t know, so I will not give you that information.” Mass Luongo and Aaron Mooy look like his preferred midfield base. Anyway, here’s who our writers think should start in Kazan.

Australia are looking for just their third win at a World Cup finals, following that memorable day in Kaiserslauten against Japan in 2006 and the victory over Serbia in 2010. But, as Richard Parkin writes, without a burden of history anything is possible.

On to today’s first game: France v Australia. Let’s be honest, it’s a big ask for the Socceroos to get anything out of this. France are by far the superior side, and even Bert van Marwijk conceded in his final pre-match press conference “it would be a surprise” if his side got a result. “Normally when we play 10 times against France, we would usually lose eight or nine times,” the Dutchman said. “We’ve worked hard to get to the situation where we maybe lose five or six but maybe also win or draw. We need guts to be ourselves and then we have a chance.”

Pod alert! Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning and Marcela Mora y Araujo, author of that brilliant piece on Messi, to pore over day two’s action.

If you think this podcast is worth something, then you can support The Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute.

Messi’s battle with Cristiano Ronaldo for the mantle of the best player in the world has been ongoing for years now, to the point of boredom. Why does one have to be better than the other? Can’t we just appreciate how lucky we are to be able to enjoy the talents of two of the greatest players ever at the same time? Anyway, here’s Paul MacInnes on CR7’s brilliance, but also on the many other sub-plots witnessed on a wild night in Sochi, where the Portugal captain’s hat-trick capped a terrific 90 minutes of football.

Messi and co open their campaign later, against Iceland, with the diminutive genius out to prove he can perform on the greatest stage of all, having “failed” to win a World Cup up to this point. This may be his last chance, and the pressure to emulate Diego Maradona is palpable in his homeland, writes Marcela Mora y Araujo.

Ever wondered how Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, Kevin De Bruyne, Javier Hernández and Cristiano Ronaldo are viewed in their home towns? The Guardian’s friends at Copa90 has been on the road from Rosario to Madeira to find out.

And another one! Impress your mates in the pub by reeling out some interesting facts and figures, like Nigeria have been drawn against Argentina in the opening group stage five times out of their six World Cup appearances.

If you’re the type who knows which player scored four goals at a World Cup and still ended up on the losing side (hint: he was born with six toes on one foot), you might quite enjoy this:

Here’s some classic David Squires, featuring furry nipple tassels, a Victorian strongman and an Iberian George Constanza. My goodness, he’s brilliant.

Those aforementioned Mo Salah fans have been forced to wait to catch a glimpse of their hero in action after he was deemed not fit enough to play against Uruguay, despite having been “100%” certain to play just 24 hours earlier. Hector Cúper revealed after the game his absence was precautionary, in order to save him for the must-win games against Russia and Saudi Arabia, which is a fair card to play.

I’m enjoying the cerebral musing of managers at this World Cup. The other day we had Stanislav Cherchesov and his “labyrinth of the Russian soul”, and now we have Uruguay’s Oscar Tabárez on the simple art of scoring goals. “The paths to scoring a goal are infinite and they’re all valid,” he said after José María Giménez nodded the winner to give the South American nation their first opening game win since 1970.

OK, where to start? How about Ekaterinburg? Watching on the telly, one of the most immediately remarkable things about the Egypt-Uruguay game was the amount of empty orange seats in the stadium. Apparently 6,000 were unoccupied, something which has piqued the interest of Fifa who are now investigating why there were so many “no-shows”. It seems especially odd given there are probably people out there who would pay good money to watch Mo Salah sitting on a bench for 90 minutes, me included.