For a World Cup that generated so much of controversy off the pitch, the action on it has been no less exhilarating so far.
Japan, South Korea, Morocco, Australia and Senegal, are the five unfancied teams that progressed from the Group stages to the knock-out Round of 16. The more pedigreed teams that fell by the wayside in the group stages were -- four-time champions Germany, two-time champions Uruguay and Belgium, which reached finished third in the 2018 World Cup and ranks second on the FIFA list.
In fact for four incredible minutes in the second half of the last group matches in Group E, both Germany and Spain were staring at an early exit, with Spain finally scraping through, thanks to their superior goal difference. Germany’s second consecutive early exit from the World Cup will surely lead to a lot of soul-searching.
“Football is a simple game: 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and, in the end, the Germans always win,” said former England great Gary Lineker after England’s heart-breaking penalty shoot-out loss against the Germans in the 1996 Euros. In a recent tweet Lineker added a crucial line to this old quote -- “If they get through the group stage.” The video accompanying the tweet, which had Lineker and another former England great Alan Shearer guffawing, could well be the very definition of schadenfreude!
Apart from the Asian and African teams’ progress, we also had Cameroon beating Brazil in its last group encounter though the result didn’t having any bearing on either team as Brazil’s progress and Cameroon’s exit were already confirmed. This of course isn’t the first time Cameroon felled a Latin American giant, it had famously defeated Argentina in the 1990 World Cup which had the legendary Diego Maradona. In the quarter-finals, the Argentina-Holland match promises to be an exciting one.