Yesterday saw the sport at its most beautiful and its most cruel.
Apologies as this is being written early Thursday morning, but life-outside-soccer activities took precedence. Wednesday saw the beauty as Japan surprised Germany and the cruelty as Canada, despite outplaying Belgium, still lost 1-0. Morocco can find the beauty of snatching a point against Croatia in a goalless draw, but Costa Rica were caught in an match against Spain that got ugly fast.
Croatia 0-0 Morocco:
Holding Croatia to a goalless is a positive for the Atlas Lions, but they will need more if they want to get out of the group. Belgium are still Belgium as we will see and Canada might still be upset about not getting a result against Belgium. Outside of that, nothing remarkable about this match.
Germany 1-2 Japan:
The match was an advertisement for the Bundesliga considering it was Germany and four of the starters for the Blue Samurai ply their trade in Germany. However, it should be noted that Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu managed to outcoach Hansi Flick in the second half. The substitutes that Moriyasu put on made a tremendous difference as they pushed forward for an equalizer and got that and then got a winner. An upset, yes, but probably not as big as it might have been 15-20 years ago.
Japan are no slouches as they qualified well in the Asian Zone and have made it out of the group stage three times (2002, 2010, 2018) and almost made the quarters last time. That is the stated goal–toughness of Group E be damned.
Spain 7-0 Costa Rica:
The Ticos that showed up against Spain looked like the ones that won just once in their first seven matches in the Octagonal (or “Ocho”). It was not that anyone expected them to emulate their 2014 feats, but they just let Spain pass them by and meekly accepted death by passing. That’s all there needs to be said here.
Belgium 1-0 Canada:
“Canada deserved to be better than us in the way they played,” Belgium coach Roberto Martinez told BBC’s Match of the Day. “It’s a win and we need to play better and to grow.
“This tournament is going to make you develop and grow as the tournament goes on. If you do that by winning games, it’s an incredible advantage.
“Today we didn’t win by our normal talent and quality on the ball, but you don’t win in the World Cup if you don’t do the other side of the game.”
It’s a cruel result for Canada who dominated the first half, but couldn’t find the net. Alphonso Davies was denied at the penalty spot by Thibeault Courtois and just one long ball was required for Belgium to take the lead before halftime through Eric Batshuayi. Do give Belgium credit for making the halftime subs to at least disrupt Canada’s fluent passing from before. Canada had tons of chances, but could not finish them.
Canada will take heart from the fact they could hang with Belgium and will now be super determined to get a result against Croatia. A similar effort against Croatia on Sunday might just get them that result.
Liam Wolf will give his story of the match later on Thursday.
Going back to the Germany-Japan match. We first heard of how the Japanese fans cleaned up after themselves after matches at the World Cup in France in 1998–which was their debut.
This is class from the Japan fans
Cleaning up in the stadium after the Germany game.#BBCFootball #BBCWorldCup pic.twitter.com/TavpGQSX4N
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) November 23, 2022
Japan were showing the beauty of this game in spite of everything surrounding this World Cup and this World as a whole right now. They are making their own statement in Qatar.
I feel like I keep adding on to a statement I started on Tuesday, but this is a World Cup in Asia and the Asians sides as well as those in North Africa (Morocco and Tunisia) are looking to make their splash in addition to the usual suspects of Europe and South America as well as the USA, Mexico, Canada, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
We’ll see how South Korea does on Thursday against Uruguay, but we’re already starting to see countries we didn’t fancy to do much at the World Cup making their statements instead of just making up the numbers.
