SAMARA, Russia
The “ fair play” tiebreaker doesn’t seem all that fair to Senegal.
The last African team standing at the World Cup lost to Colombia 1- 0 Thursday, leaving it even with Japan on record, goal differential, total goals and head- to- head. The next tiebreaker to determine who would move on as the second-place team in the group — Colombia was first — was a new one: which team accumulated fewer yellow cards. Japan had four, Senegal had six.
Japan lost to Poland 1-0 in the other group match, which was played at the same time. When Japan realized that second place would come down to the yellow- card tiebreaker, the Japanese started stalling.
Yerry Mina scored the only goal. The 6- foot- 5 ( 1.95- meter) Barcelona defender leaped above a pair of Senegalese defenders to head the ball hard off the ground, off Senegal goalkeeper Khadim Ndiaye’s hand and into the net.
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