De Boer's failures
Everything that Frank de Boer touched at the club level turned from a fighting and working mechanism into a heap of rubbish.
From the Italian "Inter" specialist was fired 85 days after the appointment, although initially the contract provided for a three-year cooperation.
But the 12th position of the grand in Serie A did not suit the club leadership.
At Crystal Palace, he only lasted 450 minutes at the helm in Premier League matches, having lost four starting matches to zero.
Overseas, in Atlanta, things seemed to go smoothly at first.
But the "second season syndrome" after a bright debut crossed out all the achievements of Frank, leaving him without work again.
The appointment to the Netherlands national team in September 2020 turned out to be hasty and illogical.
But Ronald Koeman took over Barcelona, leaving the national team without a coach - and in time trouble, the football federation decided to entrust the team to its ex-defender.
De Boer started very badly: he was the first in the history of the country's main team to win none of the four starting fights.
On Wednesday, he brought down the quotes of his shares even more, losing the coaching duel to the most experienced Chenol Gunesh.
In Istanbul, the hosts gave the rivals the initiative, allowed them to move actively and hit a lot.
But these strikes mainly came from not the most dangerous positions.
And the movement of the guests rested on the impossibility of giving a sharp last pass.
The Turks, on the other hand, fled into lightning-fast counterattacks and squeezed almost one hundred percent efficiency out of them.
The most experienced Burak Yilmaz realized the chances with particular quality.
By the break, the 35-year-old striker had scored a double, and closed the end of the match with a hat-trick.
The Netherlands were saved from the total defeat by the reservists: Luc de Jong and Davy Klaasen successfully made substitutions - the latter scored almost the first touch after appearing on the field.
And the catchy 2: 4 into a very decent battle score was almost converted by Memphis Depay.
But in the 95th minute the Lyon leader missed the penalty kick.
Tadic's three passes saved Serbia
In Belgrade, the Irish were close to winning a draw.
Alan Brown's well-aimed header in the opening of the match ended Stephen Kenny's 678-minute streak without goals.
Seven fights of the League of Nations in Division B, representatives of the island state left the field without effective action, and finally broke through.
The Serbs, on the other hand, until the 70th minute, although they were very close to getting a victory, were content only with the ball of Dusan Vlahovic.
The Fiorentina forward has confirmed that he has become a key goalscorer at club level - 11 goals in the last 16 matches, including his debut hat-trick in Serie A. Moreover, having rewritten the record for scoring in Italy, he swung to great achievements in the national team.
But one more accurate blow in his performance due to an offside position was canceled by the referee team.
But both goals of Alexander Mitrovic in the end were scored according to all the rules.
However, not him, but Dusan Tadic should be recognized as the main star of the match.
The midfielder of Ajax Amsterdam scored an assistant hat-trick, which overshadowed his teammates and James Collins, who scored the Irish goal of prestige in the end.
Referees' mistake and Griezman's goal did not break Ukraine
In the first match of the 1/8 finals of the Champions League between Real Madrid and Atalanta, referee Tobias Stieler made an ambiguous decision in the 17th minute.
For a foul on Ferlana Mendy, he sent off Italian midfielder Remo Freuler.
The controversial episode itself after the match was actively sorted out even by fellow referees.
And most of them recognized the red card as too harsh and unreasonable verdict.
Less than a month later, Stieler was again in the spotlight because of the referee scandal, this time being the main arbiter of the France-Ukraine meeting.
Before Antoine Griezman drew the line on the 19th minute of the match with a delightful long-range shot into the goalkeeper Georgy Buschan's bypass, the referee missed a meter offside at Benjamin Pavar.
Since VAR is not used in the qualifiers for the World Cup, the error remained uncorrected.
And she risked costing the Ukrainians the loss of points.
However, the team of Andriy Shevchenko, all evening in no way inferior to the grand, found the strength to restore balance.
To do this, the guests took Kimpembe as Presnel's comrades-in-arms - and forced him to send the ball into his own goal.
Nevertheless, the absence of their own goalscorers does not diminish either the result or the quality of the Ukrainians' game.
They defended well with a low block with five defenders, tried to constantly leave the defense through a pass, and even went into non-trivial plays.
Hence the balance restored by the middle of the match (the French had only one shot on target in 45 minutes), and segments of their own solo.
The most masterly of all the role of the leader in those minutes was played by Alexander Zinchenko, who for the first time brought the national team to the field with a captain's armband - and became the youngest "leader" in its history.
Croatia lacked sharpness in attack without Olic
The appointment of Ivica Olic to the post of head coach of CSKA Moscow deprived Zlatko Dalic of a key assistant.
And, perhaps, this is the reason for the insufficiently confident game in the attack of the vice-champions of the world against the Slovenes.
Zlatko Dalic fielded the best forces in Ljubljana.
But neither Luka Modric nor Ivan Perisic managed to outwit Jan Oblak.
As, however, and Nikola Vlašić - the capital army of all the Croats was the closest to success.
But the goalkeeper of Atletico Madrid also pulled his cunning blow.
But Cloud's counterpart, Dominik Livakovich, did not control Sandy Lovrich's cannon in the 15th minute.
After that, the Slovenes turned on maximum discipline, saturated the center of the field and accompanied each single combat with a power struggle.
In an atmosphere of constant joints and a lack of space, the Croats felt insecure.
And therefore, closer to the end of the meeting, they generally disappeared into the field.
But the hosts, on the contrary, emotionally added as the final whistle approached.
And on this drive the ending was "taken out".
Separately, we note Yaka Biyol, who remained unclaimed by Viktor Goncharenko in CSKA.
As part of the national team, the footballer looked as organic as possible - and at the end of the evening he turned out to be one of the most useful among all the participants in the match.
Azar Jr. outshined his brother in the national team
Watching the meeting between the Belgians and the Welsh, the scouts of Real Madrid might have wondered if they had transported that Azar to the capital of Spain?
After all, Torgan, the younger brother of the Galacticos midfielder, shone in the first national team of the world rating all evening.
And while Eden is doing more treatment than spending time on the field, his closest relative glorifies the surname.
In at least 83 minutes on the field in Leuven, the midfielder of Borussia Dortmund scored a goal plus pass and helped the team win a strong-willed victory.
The ball, conceded at the beginning by Harry Wilson, turned out to be both quick and unnecessary.
And realizing this, the Belgians took the initiative in response (possession in the first half exceeded 70%), and then staged a massive siege of the opponent's defense.
This led to positional errors of the guests, which Hazard took advantage of.
Even before the big break, he helped Kevin de Bruyne score with an amazing shot, and then scored himself with the transfer of Tom Meunier.
The match could have ended at this point, since the Welsh had no counterarguments - even with Garrett Bale in the squad.
When the guests nevertheless tried to arrange their own bulk closer to the denouement, they were pragmatically punished for being too open to Romelu Lukaku.
The top scorer in the history of the national team scored the 58th goal in the 90th game for Belgium and established the final score, confirming the superiority of the favorite.