Mexico’s deserved 3-0 spanking at the hands of an exceptional Sweden side doesn’t matter. El Tri’s through to the Round of 16 thanks to one of the greatest upsets in the history of the World Cup. The defending champions are out, and they’ll long have nightmares of South Korea goalkeeper Cho Hyun-woo, who made six saves on the day.
Group B went batshit crazy on Monday, but when the dust settled and the VAR screen had been flicked off, nothing had changed over the course of 90 overly dramatic minutes in Russia: Spain finish top and will play Russia, Portugal finish runners-up and take on Uruguay. One major talking point is that the European champions could’ve been preparing for that game without Cristiano Ronaldo, who was given a VAR-inspired yellow card for an off-the-ball elbow.
Who wants to play Russia? Who wants to play Uruguay?!
Not Morocco. The already-eliminated side has been one of the better looking teams at the World Cup, but the Atlas Lions had yet to score or get points at this World Cup heading into its final group match. That’s soccer for you.
But after all the misfortune, Morocco finally had some luck go its way.
A rare fib between former El Clasico rivals Andres Iniesta and Sergio Ramos led to a break away for Khalid Boutaïb. David de Gea was looking to make his first save of the tournament, but Boutaïb finished with poise.
Since the turn of the century it’s happened without fail: every World Cup, three nations that began the tournament ranked in FIFA’s top 20 have been unceremoniously dumped out at the group stage.
After registering somewhat surprising victories over Colombia and Poland on matchday one in Group H, Japan and Senegal played to a thrilling 2-2 draw in Yekaterinburg on Sunday. Sadio Mane opened the scoring for Senegal early in the first half, only for Takashi Inui to equalize 23 minutes later.
Let’s be honest here. Panama was bad on Sunday. Really bad. Los Canaleros embarrassed Concacaf and every Concacaf nation that didn’t qualify, although no specific nations immediately come to mind. The 6-1 loss for Panama vs England was the worst performance of any team thus far at the World Cup.
The riff on “Seven Nation Army” is good, but it’s not so good that it should set the barometer for stadium energy levels at every major international tournament for the rest of time.
If Miguel Layun manages to bury any of his six total shots over in Russia, he’s one of the stories of the World Cup. Of course Chucky Lozano has been excellent. Of course Carlos Vela has taken his game to a level that even the most ardent of Vela supporters couldn’t have anticipated. Of course Andres Guardado is a wizened midfield wizard.
Peru’s the best team at the World Cup.
Technically, only one team can win the tournament. Only one team will have its name engraved on the Jules Rimet trophy (2.0) come mid-July. But there’s more than one way to win the competition.
A massive Mexican contingent of fans at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow (Fox’s Kasey Keller went as far as to say it was 80 percent El Tri fans vs. 20 percent German) was on hand to watch Mexico defeat defending world champions Germany 1-0 thanks to Hirving “Chucky” Lozano’s goal in the 35th minute.