The venue for this World Cup, Qatar, has had its bouquets and brickbats. It has also produced what no previous version has given us: a successful tournament for Asian and African nations.
Each Asian team of Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and South Korea has won at least one match in Qatar. The only exception is ironically the home nation, the 2019 Asian champion Qatar themselves. Each African team of Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, Tunisia and Cameroon has likewise won at least once.
This is unprecedented, and is a core reason why Qatar 2022 has been seen as such a surprising tournament. These countries have been highly supported in the stands, since the fans of traditional lightweights such as Saudi Arabia have less ground to cover to take part.
This has culminated in a crazy four days of do-or-die football, in which Ghana, Japan and Morocco have all played a central role.
As the only two big names from these teams being six-goal Ecuadorian World Cup scorer Enner Valencia and Senegal goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, this game was lost in the mail. But a direct battle for survival between two semi-newcomer countries from Africa and South America is really what the World Cup is all about for anyone with an eye beyond Manchester City, Lionel Messi and so on.
Ecuador, a small country dwarfed by the rest of their continent, are here in Qatar putting their country on the map with two excellent matches of doing all the fundamentals right and playing Holland off the park. In a World Cup in which South America has generally struggled, needing only a draw to make it to the big time, they choked. They played it defensive, forgot what had made them great these two weeks, and were rolled.
Senegal are the current African champions, but have mostly kept it solid these years rather than being eye-catching. 2022 delivered the crazy event of Senegal haphazardly winning two identical penalty shootouts in two months against Egypt to become African champions and to reach the World Cup, breaking Egypt’s 35-year winning penalty shootout streak. Senegal deserved this victory against Ecuador, who didn’t show up.
Senegal are a plain, solid team, who probably don’t have the X-factor to beat England.
In reality, Iran have been put through the emotional ringer this month, and ran out of steam, not being able to match the USA’s general game of solid passing and physical strength.
Timothy Weah’s pretty finish for the second goal right before half-time seemed completely legitimate and was oddly not sent to VAR. Its annulment would have made this match a farce had USA not won.
As mentioned, USA showed up ready to rumble in these World Cup matches, evidenced by their draw with England. But USA, besides Christian Pulisic’s prodding, are generally toothless. Nonetheless against an overrated, inconsistent Holland team, they have the proverbial puncher’s chance.
The Saudis will always have Qatar, and in a way, so will Argentina. Saudi Arabia started well against Argentina and Poland, but ultimately ran out of steam a game and a half into the World Cup.
Argentina played their usual prodding, patient, often classical game, eventually breaking the static Poland team, who as always displayed and contributed nothing at all and will hopefully not be the ones to put the Kylian Mbappe show to bed. Argentina are curiously stacked with no-names, but the hope as always is that their aesthetic, ‘pure’ gameplay will one day be world-conquering. The historical evidence of this happening is actually relatively scanty.
The Poland and Mexico ‘will-they, won’t-they’ was the first of many simultaneous, multi-match group dramas this week. Poland did literally nothing to reach the Second Round; their aim was to concede no goals and no yellow cards over the last half-hour. But you can’t really say Mexico deserved to get in either.
Now we’re talking. Australia’s team of no-names does not compare in fame to its 2006 generation, but they have found the energy to cover for each other and have unexpectedly crafted three excellent goals here in Qatar. Matthew Leckie on the right wing has surreptitiously been the most effective Socceroo attacker of the last decade, and now he is centre stage. He needed to be, as without a win, Tunisia’s unexpected win would have sent us packing in a fury.
Denmark, European semi-finalists only a year ago and highly tipped by me, began a string of high-profile European underachievement over the last two days. I am better at describing what happened in matches than what didn’t happen, so I might just have to leave it with, “What happened to YOU?”
On the same day, Morocco and Japan ended as group winners, beating out four very high-profile, recently successful European nations. This is the very first World Cup in which both Asian and African teams have majorly contributed to the show, each continent recording seven wins thus far.
The interesting silver and bronze medallists from 2018, Croatia and Belgium, this time descended into the muck of a scrappy fight for survival against each other. The astonishing sequence of Romelu Lukaku’s five vital missed chances in a half of football give the night an epic quality despite the 0-0 scoreline.
These may end up the most famous World Cup misses since perhaps Richart Morales’ errant point-blank header for Uruguay against Senegal twenty years ago.
So Lukaku is the scapegoat in this litigious, 21st Century of ours where someone is always at fault. But consider this: until Lukaku came off the bench and made his first appearance of the tournament, Belgium had never looked like scoring at this World Cup.
I gave up on these matches when Spain and Germany each scored after 10 minutes. I believed the group was decided, and I fumed at how easily the tournament’s path had opened up for Germany.
Japan’s win was truly beautiful, an amazing copy and paste of their two-goal smash-and-grab against Germany. Ritsu Doan’s rocket came out of nowhere to electrify the whole football world. Doan, on as a half-time substitute, is responsible for three of Japan’s four goals so far and he himself has come out of nowhere here in Qatar. Then we had the Twitter-Esque talking point of Japan saving the ball by millimetres for their second, winning goal.
For a few brief, incredible minutes Spain and Germany were both going home after the overwhelmed Japan and Costa Rica each scored twice out of nothing. Normal service resumed for Germany, who scored a further three goals, but Japan held on against Spain and surreally sent Germany out.
Besides shipping a few too many goals, Germany did not do anything terribly wrong in Qatar. With identical results to Spain, they were ultimately exactly even with them. They both suffered the same miraculous loss to Japan, and the vibe of the 1-1 Spain-Germany draw was of exact equality.
So Germany is eliminated from the first-round group for the second World Cup running, which also happened to Italy in 2010 and 2014. If Germany continue following Italy’s trajectory then Germany’s next World Cup match will be in 2034.
It is truly special that these two random, peripheral countries, great football nations nonetheless, once again ended with a do-or-die only twelve years after their demoralising 2010 World Cup quarter-final, and with 2010 historical villain Luis Suarez still intact to rub the salt in.
For the uninitiated, Uruguayan Suarez handballed away a certain 120th-minute Ghana goal and Ghanaian Asamoah Gyan missed the winning penalty kick.
The match that finally ensued was obscene in how poetic it was, and how much the 2010 match bled into this one. After 20 minutes Ghana once again had a penalty. The only Ghanaian present from 2010, the excellent Andre Ayew, felt the past crush him, slowly walked to the spot and delivered a wretched kick. Uruguayan Federico Valverde then celebrated this by waving his fists in the referee’s face. Suarez then immediately set up two Uruguayan goals and Uruguay cruised. The world is indifferent to your pleas for justice.
And yet… the most forgotten team of the group, South Korea, scored a 90th-minute winner in their otherwise indifferent match against Portugal. Uruguay knew that a 3-0 win would have insulated them against this, but did nothing about that for an hour.
Suddenly they became desperate, the TV flashed delicious multiple angles of Suarez crying on the bench, and Ghana, recognising their chance to take Uruguay down, desperately defended a 2-0 loss.
The Oscar Washington Tabarez era gave them class, which this morning they lost without him around.
My recent theory over time is that eventually, you do get what you want in life, but just not in the way you expect to get it.
While not as famous as Ghana-Uruguay, this was also a revenge match. In the previous World Cup in 2018 the Swiss Kosovar Xerdan Shaqiri, who always delivers for Switzerland, slowly streaked away on a one-on-one against Serbia’s goalkeeper and gently rolled the ball past him to win the match for Switzerland.
In victory, he and fellow Swiss Kosovar Granit Xhaka then found the opportunity to flash Albania’s double eagle with their hands to provoke deep feelings all over the Balkans. While he would have done it regardless, he probably didn’t expect to have to answer to the Serbs again within only one World Cup cycle.
Sure enough, just like in the Uruguay-Ghana match, Shaqiri reappeared to stick the knife in an unusually entertaining game. Serbia, as they had against Cameroon, had the ball-playing skills and multiple forwards with goalscoring ability but not the defence to back it all up. Like Croatia in 2018, one distant day in the future Serbia will get it all together, and it will be stunning.
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.
Even though St.Pauli ultimately lost a high-scoring affair, Jackson Irvine was a standout, as well as scoring a late goal.
What if we celebrated all of the achievements big and small, and weeded out those hell-bent on bringing down a game that is doing a hell of a lot right?
A good performance from Michael Ruhs, scoring twice to beat Macarthur and doubling his season goal tally in the process.
Nestory Irankunda has sensationally rejected the chance to play at the Paris Olympics this June after a late bid from the Olyroos to include…
Mathew Ryan's tenure at AZ Alkmaar appears to be over, as the Eredivisie side are seemingly moving on from the 93-time Socceroo. The decision…
One down 49 to go. Socceroos striker Kusini Yengi raised some eyebrows this week when he declared himself to be the talisman striker the…
