IN Ekaterinburg, the eastern-most venue to be used in this World Cup, a far from sellout crowd of 27,015 witnessed two-time World Champions Uruguay score an 89th-minute winner today against an Egyptian side lacking their talisman Mo Salah.

Salah was deemed not fit enough to play and watched the match from the substitutes’ bench.

Egypt were well-organised in defence, playing an extra man in midfield, and starved service to Uruguay’s much-vaunted strike partnership of Edinson Cavani and Luis Suarez, with their defensive midfield shield of Tarek Hamed and Mohamed Elneny impressing. 

Nonetheless, Suarez should have done far better than to screw a shot into the side-netting in the 24th minute after a knockdown from a corner found him unmarked at the far post.

Uruguay immediately upped the tempo after half-time, with Cavani and Suarez combining a minute into the second half and forcing Egyptian goalkeeper Mohamed El Shenawy to rush out to block the Barcelona striker from close range. 

The same two combined in the 73rd minute with Cavani brilliantly pirouetting to release Suarez once more before he stumbled at the crucial moment and the ball was smothered by El Shenawy. 

Egypt, for all their neat passing, struggled to create chances without their star striker Salah. Captain Ahmed Fathi stretched Fernando Muslera in the 71st minute with a cross-shot, but the Pharaohs always looked happy to take a point from the match.

Cavani went close to scoring twice within minutes, first with a spectacular volley which El Shenawy parried away at full stretch before defeating the Egyptian goalkeeper with a free-kick only to see it come back off the inside of the far post. 

It took a defender, Jose Gimenez, to eventually win the match, just beating his captain Diego Godin to power home a header from Carlos Sanchez’s right-wing free kick and punishing Egypt for their lack of ambition in the closing stages.

Egypt coach Hector Cuper felt his team had played well, saying: “The shame is that we lost after a set piece.”

Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez accepted that “some of his players didn’t play as well as they can,” but, managing at his fourth tournament, he was delighted to record Uruguay’s first win in an opening World Cup game since 1970.

“We broke the spell. Another stat has been done away with. We either die or we kill. We have to fight as much as we can to keep progressing.”