
Fefjani, Lukaku and Granqvist
Tunisia score first African goal
Tunisia became the first African country to score a goal in the World Cup 2018. Midfielder Ferjani Sassi converted a 35-minute penalty to cancel Harry Kane's early lead. Unfortunately Kane scored again in the 90th minute to grab the full points of the game. Until Monday three African countries have played in Russia as Egypt lost to Uruguay 1-0, Nigeria were sunk by Argentina 2-0 and Morocco lost against Iran 0-1 due to a stoppage-time own goal. Senegal will face Poland on Tuesday.

Tunisia's Ferjani Sassi scores their first goal from a penalty (Reuters)
Lukaku's brace
Belgium cruises past World Cup debutant Panama with a 3-0 victory. Dries Mertens opened the scoring but Romelu Lukaku was the star man after scoring twice. Lukaku's hard work up front was rewarded when he headed home Kevin De Bruyne's brilliant pass off the outside off his foot to make it 2-0 in the 69th minute and the big striker latched on to an Eden Hazard pass to complete the scoring with a neat finish.

Belgium's forward Romelu Lukaku (L) attempts a shot on Panama's goalkeeper Jaime Penedo (AFP)
Sweden break World Cup jinx
Sweden won an opening World Cup game for the first time since 1958 with a narrow 1-0 victory over South Korea. It wasn't easy as they needed a VAR-awarded penalty to allow captain Andreas Granqvist to beat the Korean keeper.

Sweden's defender Andreas Granqvist (L) celebrates after scoring a penalty (AFP)
Maradona defends Messi
Diego Maradona has defended Lionel Mess after missing a penalty against Iceland on Saturday "I don't blame the players. I could blame the lack of work rate. But I can't blame the players, much less Messi, who gave it all he had. I missed five penalties on the spin and I was still Diego Armando Maradona. I don't think that they dropped two points because Messi missed a penalty," Maradona told Venezuelan television channel Telesur.

Argentina's football legend Diego Maradona smokes a cigare as he attends the Russia 2018 World Cup Group D football match between Argentina and Iceland (AFP)
Race for Golden Boot heats-up
Ronaldo leads the chart following his hat-trick against Spain but he has all the World class strikers in his tail. Harry Kane of England, Romelu Lukaku of Belgium, Diego Costa of Spain and Denis Cheryshev of Russia scored each a brace in their first game.

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates scoring their first goal (Reuters)
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