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World Cup Group Stage Wrapup

Dec 03, 2022

This is the World Cup that keeps on giving.

After a dramatic opening round of group ties that included shock defeats for Argentina and Germany, the final lineup of round-robin matches was no less nail-biting.

Here, we take a look at some of the biggest talking points as we move on from the group stage onto the knockout rounds.

South Korea 2 - 1 Portugal

The Koreans fought back from a goal down to upset Portugal, with Hwang Hee-Chan firing the dramatic winner in injury-time.

It ensured the Asian side progressed to the last-16 as Group H runners-up, edging third-placed Uruguay on goal difference.

Even more dramatically, Uruguay – who defeated Ghana 2-0 – needed just one more goal to advance to the knockout stage on goal difference.

Japan 2 – 1 Spain – Blue Samurai do it again

Nobody gave the Japanese a chance of making it into the knockout round, after they were grouped together with Germany and Spain.

However, Hajime Moriyasu’s side not only beat the Germans in the opening game, but wrapped up the group stage with another impressive win over Spain, to collect the scalp of two former world champions.

Significantly, Japan’s win over the Spaniards also meant that Germany were eliminated from the tournament. Which leads us to…

Germany make another early exit

Four-time champions Germany came into this tournament as one of the favourites, on the back of their experience and pedigree in football’s showpiece event.

But there was no fairytale ending for Die Mannschaft…leaving Qatar with one win, one draw and one defeat to finish third in the group, behind Spain on goal difference.

It is another disappointing end for the Germans, who also exited in the group stage in the last edition in 2018.

Belgium on the early flight home

There was an air of expectation that the Belgians could be one of the dark horses at this year’s World Cup.

They were semi-finalists in 2018 and are currently ranked second in the world. The Red Devils also boasted an experienced line-up that included the likes of Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois, Man City’s Kevin De Bruyne, Atletico’s Yannick Carrasco and Romelu Lukaku of Inter Milan.

But the Belgians never got their tournament off the ground, with one win, draw and defeat…including the shock 2-0 loss to Morocco.

Unwanted record for the hosts

There was a cloud of controversy hanging over Qatar’s organisation of the tournament, but there was equally hope that their football team would at least provide a positive diversion from the off-field negativity.

Alas, the Qatari side finished bottom of their group without a win and with just one goal to their name.

They are the first host nation to lose their opening match, the first to lose all three group games, and only the second hosts to be eliminated from the group stage.

Rise of the underdogs

If there is one main takeaway from the group stage, it is that this has been the tournament of the underdogs.

AFC reps Japan, South Korea and Australia all made it out of the group stage (with shock results along the way), while Morocco were the first African team in 24 years to top their group.

Even Saudi Arabia can hold their heads high despite making a group stage exit, after their highly-impressive win over Argentina.