For the first time in the history of the World Cup, we saw the round of 32. Now we are down to 16. Here are the top five headlines from the round that recently was.
5) Egypt eliminates the Socceroos.
Australia saw its World Cup run come to an end on Friday as they were beaten by Egypt 4-2 on penalty kicks after the game was tied at one goal apiece. One of the biggest stories from the game was Australia’s decision to change goalkeepers in the 119th minute. Mathew Ryan of Plumpton replaced Patrick Beach of Sydney after sitting out for most of the game. The Australian decision backfired as Ryan looked rusty in penalty kicks. Egypt scored on all four attempts, while Harry Souttar and Lucas Harrington both kicked the soccer ball over the net.
4) Scoring first did not guarantee victory.
In the 16 round of 32 matches, the team that scored first actually lost five times. Brazil came back to beat Japan 2-1, Morocco beat the Netherlands 3-2 on penalties after tying the game at one, England came back to beat the Congo 2-1 on a Harry Kane brace, Belgium came back to beat Senegal 3-2 and Portugal came back to beat Croatia 2-1.
The Belgium win was very noteworthy as it was a comeback for the ages. The Belgians were actually down 2-0 with five minutes left in regulation time before scoring two goals in four minutes to tie the game and then won it on a Youri Tielemans penalty kick in extra time. Tielemans also scored a brace as he was the one who tied the game in the 125th minute. The only other player to have a brace in the round of 32 was Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal in a 3-0 Spain win over Austria.
3) All three host teams have advanced
The three host nations are all still alive. Canada beat South Africa 1-0, Mexico beat Ecuador 2-0 and the United States beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-0. The fact that Canada were forced to play their elimination game on American grass (Los Angeles to be exact) turned out to be controversial.
2) Paraguay stuns Germany
The biggest round of 32 upset came in Boston as Paraguay stunned Germany 4-3 on penalty kicks after playing to a 1-1 draw. The betting line for the match was -320 in favour of Germany. Prior to the World Cup, Germany was ranked 10th in the world, and Paraguay was ranked 41st.
1) What are the eight round of 16 matches?
Over the next four days we will see Canada versus Morocco, Paraguay versus France, Brazil versus Norway, Mexico versus England, Portugal versus Spain, the United States versus Belgium, Argentina versus Egypt and Switzerland versus Colombia.
