Socceroos future rivals fire blanks

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Arab teams are making an interaction astatine the archetypal World Cup successful the Middle East.

Tunisia held European Championship semifinalist Denmark to a 0-0 gully Tuesday, 3 hours aft Saudi Arabia bushed Argentina successful a shocking upset.

Before a stadium filled astir wholly with its red-clad supporters, Tunisia apt deserved much but an adept prevention soon earlier halftime by goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel helped Denmark sphere the draw.

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Having already gone down to the writer aft Tunisia broke done the defense, Schmeichel stuck his manus up to deflect a changeable from Issam Jebali, who plays his nine shot successful Denmark for Odense.

It was conscionable the benignant of prevention that the keeper’s father, erstwhile Manchester United large Peter Schmeichel, utilized to propulsion off.

The lucifer marked Christian Eriksen’s instrumentality to a large tourney little than a twelvemonth and a fractional aft his cardiac apprehension with Denmark astatine Euro 2020.

Assuming his customary playmaker position, Eriksen produced a unsafe long-distance changeable connected extremity successful the 2nd fractional that Tunisia goalkeeper Aymen Dahmen had to bat away.

And connected the ensuing corner, Denmark deed the post.

Tunisia besides survived the accidental of a last-minute punishment for Denmark but the referee ruled to play connected aft a video reappraisal for a imaginable handball.

Denmark has been 1 of the astir outspoken critics of the tourney successful Qatar and during the pre-match warmup its players wore each achromatic long-sleeve shirts implicit their reddish crippled jerseys to mourn migrant workers who died gathering infrastructure for soccer’s biggest event.

Denmark was besides readying connected wearing the “One Love” anti-discrimination armband on with different European teams earlier the run was dropped erstwhile FIFA threatened to manus retired yellowish cards.

However, erstwhile Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is present seat of the Danish shot federation’s governance and improvement committee, was astatine the stadium wearing a overgarment with immoderate subtle rainbow coloring.

Denmark has lofty goals pursuing its show astatine past year's Euro 2020 and a near-perfect qualifying campaign, portion Tunisia is seeking to beforehand from the radical signifier for the archetypal clip successful its sixth World Cup appearance.

After a deficiency of ambiance astatine respective of the opening matches, the immense fig of Tunisian fans wrong Education City Stadium made it consciousness similar a location lucifer for the North African team. Tunisia fans chanted, banged drums and blew aerial horns erstwhile their squad had the shot — past hissed and whistled loudly whenever Denmark had possession.

Many spectators waving Palestinian flags besides supported Tunisia.

Tunisia midfielder Aïssa Laïdouni acceptable the code successful the precise archetypal infinitesimal erstwhile helium stripped Eriksen of the shot with an assertive sliding tackle — past stood up and pumped his arms menacingly, gesturing to the assemblage to get adjacent much fired up.

In the end, some teams produced 13 shots.

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