World Cup: Knockout shocks and delights
Kylian Mbappe of France celebrates scoring his first against Sweden. Picture: Mattia Ozbot/Getty Images
Despite the extra teams and extra games, the World Cup is barrelling along at quite a pace, with the first games in the Round of 16 kicking-off tomorrow as co-hosts Canada take on Dutch killers Morocco in the early evening game in Houston, while the side that humbled the mighty Germans, Paraguay face what already looks like an unstoppable French side in Philadelphia.
The new Round of 32 has delivered shocks as well as some welcome surprises, including the defeats of Germany and the Netherlands. To be fair, though, Morocco’s win was not entirely unexpected. After all, they are African champions* and reached the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup, before being narrowly denied third place by Croatia. Yet beating a good Dutch side in the way they did was impressive.
The Paraguay win was far more unexpected. Now, the Germans hardly lit up the tournament, but they are still the Germans, and one expects them to push on when they get into the knockout stages. You certainly don’t expect a penalty shootout exit from the masters of dead-ball goals. And it’s not like Paraguay were burning up the charts. The South Americans lost to the USA, drew with an average looking Australia side, and only beat a completely disarrayed Türkiye side by 1-0. But Paraguay stuck to their task and doggedly defended their patch against the four-time champions and got their reward.
They were not the only bright point in the Round of 32, the other co-host Mexico have been quietly going about their work, racking up wins and goals without much fuss or fear. They remain the only side in the tournament yet to concede a goal, while showing no let-up racking up the wins, which is some boast going into the Round of 16. And for some interest on this side of the pond, they now face England, early Monday morning, at home in the amazing Azteca Stadium with the added advantage of being acclimatised to the local Mexico City elevation. But England will feel blessed to be just there after the fright they got against DR Congo.
The Congolese came close to ending the English dream in Atlanta and but for the brilliance of Harry Kane, especially for the second goal, could have been coming home empty-handed.
The upset was really on the cards for Senegal in Seattle on Wednesday night when they had a two-goal lead over Belgium with 86 minutes played, only to totally collapse 3-2 once Romelu Lukaku got what looked like a consolation goal for the Belgians. It will take some years for the Senegalese to figure out and come to terms how they messed up such a great opportunity.
The highlight game of the past week was last group match between Colombia and Portugal. With both sides qualified it may have seemed like a dead rubber, but both sides played amazing football in probably the best 0-0 all draw seen in years.
Colombia, in particular, played amazing football in the dead Miami heat with the veteran winger James Rodriquez rolling back the years to dominate midfield and set up some fantastic passes to his strikers, who were only stopped by the brilliance of Portugal’s keeper Diego Costa, and the pernickety calls of VAR (denying the South Americans a late winner). The free-flowing magic of the Colombians, who have an uncanny similarity to the Brazil side of 1982, should have won it but Portugal deserve credit too for making it the best game of the tournament so far.
France’s win over the Swedes on Tuesday was extremely entertaining too, not so much that it was a close contest but for the flamboyance of France’s striking options. Not only did they run in the goals from Kylian Mbappe’s brace and with a Bradley Barcola’s strike in between. It was maybe the quality and sheer number of their missed opportunities from the likes Michael Olise and Ousmane Dembele that took the breath away.
If the French keep on improving as they have been with each passing match it will be hard to see which side could possibly stop them.
Mbappe’s brace against the Swedes continues to stoke the Golden Boot race as he is now equal with Messi on six goals, though Messi has a game in hand and you’d fancy he might run in one or two against Cape Verde tonight. But maybe not then again, Cape Verde’s defence led by their Irishman Pico Lopes have proven more than a handful for other sides with big reputations.
Erling Haaland pushed his total to five, alongside Kane, while Vinicius Junior for Brazil and Dembele for France are on four. Warming up a goal contest that may be the best in World Cup history.
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