With this 0-1 defeat to Tunisia, France is the third defending World Cup champion to see its post-title unbeaten streak following its World Cup title victory end at two matches. A few defending champions lost their very first matches in World Cup competition following victories in the preceding World Cup final: - Germany in 2018 vs. Mexico 0-1 - Spain in 2014 vs. Netherlands 1-5 - France in 2022 vs. Senegal 0-1 - Argentina in 1990 vs. Cameroon 0-1 - Argentina in 1982 vs. Belgium 0-1 Brazil's shortest streak was two matches (vs. Norway in 1998, 1-2) while its longest was seven matches, although this includes the 1962 World Cup. In the same vein, Uruguay and Italy had long streaks as well: four for Italy between 1934-1938 and 1950, and seven for Uruguay between 1930-1950 and 1954. The most frequent slayers of defending champions have been: - Sweden (3-2 over Italy in 1938 and 3-1 over West Germany in 1958) - Hungary (4-2 over Uruguay in 1954 and 3-1 over Brazil in 1966) - France (2-0 over Italy in 1986 and 1-0 over Brazil in 2006) - Netherlands (2-0 over Brazil in 1974 and 5-1 over Spain in 2014) Brazil ended a defending champion's streak (one match) in 1970 with its 1-0 victory over England. Many of these defeats by defending champions happened in the group stage or in the "secondary" group stage (which preceded the modern bracket format). Since the current 16-team bracket came into play, the farthest a defending champion went before being defeated has been the quarterfinal stage, with Germany losing to Bulgaria 1-2 in 1994 and Brazil losing to France 0-1 in 2006). Post-2002, every defending champion was defeated in the group stage.
Argentina up 1 x 0 and Mexico up 1 on Saudi Arabia. Argentina look pretty safe now with these results. They will get rewarded with a gimme in R16. And then they get winner of US and Netherlands. Unbelievable. Chalk them into the SF.
Attractive Pole fans in the second round , thank you Saudi Arabia. Argentina was working overtime for the 3rd goal , dunno what they thinking with that. But in all seriousness good job for putting on an entertaining match and congrats on advancing to round of 16.
100% If you're Poland, why do you not go for it at 0 x 1 ? The reward is playing Australia as opposed to France. And Denmark crapped out. I was hoping they'd be able to challenge Argentina in R16. These European mid strength dark horses 99% of the time are complete garbage. Argentina had a shit group and now have a cake walk way into the semis. Lucky AF ...
Poland showed none of the resolve which propelled it to victory over Saudi Arabia. I get that preserving a 0-0 result would have been favorable, but once they were losing, they needed to do something different. Argentina smelled blood and kept going. The irony is that Denmark is *probably* better than Poland, but the former is out while the latter actually reached the knockout stage.
I wonder if the eastern euro teams are suffering with the Middle East weather more than average. Serbia looked dead past the 60 minute mark in both matches and Poland was just going through the motions today.
Since Morocco topped the group, assuming we top our group, Croatia was just sent to our end of the bracket as a possible QF opponent. Still expect that to be Spain ... but a Spain vs Croatia game would be interesting.
They were - Germany drew. However, if Japan-Spain remains 2-1, Germany will need to score 7 more goals to qualify. Otherwise, Spain will finish in second place.
Algum Brasileiro meteu uma macumba na Alemanha depois daquele 7 x 1. Ganhe da Argentina mas depois caia em mediocridade.
It happened. Germany is out, and after the 2014 World Cup title victory in Rio, Germany has been eliminated from the World Cup in the group stage twice in a row, with 1 win, 1 draw, and 4 losses. It's time to rebuild. Major respect to Japan - an Asian team has eliminated two World Cup champions in the group stage, and this after many if not most pundits picked Germany and Spain to advance.
Germany out. Spain through in 2nd. We presumably catch a break. We top the group and QF could be Japan or Croatia. Love watching Japan. Always entertaining to watch.