Following two weeks of mixed results in the group games, this Saturday we shall be witnessing another thrilling phase of the 2018 FIFA World Cup when the Round of 16 knockout stage starts. In the group stage, most of the tournament’s most fancied teams have failed to fire as expected and surprisingly it was the youthful English team and the ‘golden generation’ of Belgium that captured the imagination.
Some may argue that the two teams landed weaker opponents, but look, Uruguay only managed a 1-0 win against Saudi Arabia, Spain and Portugal struggled against Morocco and Iran and who has forgotten Argentina’s 1-1 draw against another debutant Iceland? Those results for some of the giants should help us appreciate and recognise the impressive group game performances by the Three Lions and Belgium’s Red Devils.
With England team captain Harry Kane leading by example, scoring five goals in the opening two games of his debut World Cup, it should not be a surprise if this fresh batch of English talent makes a mark on this platform after decades of waiting. So too is the case for Belgium. Granted their eight goals in the opening two games came against two of the poorest teams in the tournament (Panama and Tunisia), but if you consider the style in which the Belgians are winning these games, they mean serious business in Russia.
This Belgian team has underperformed at major tournaments before but now that they are playing at a third straight tourney together, who knows, this could be the right time for the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Eden Hazard, Dries Mertens and Kevin De Bruyne to deliver on their undeniable promise. Since their elimination at Euro 2016, the Red Devils have gone 21 games unbeaten and such momentum can fire them to glory. This next round will indeed uncover the real challengers and the pretenders.
FULL TIME ANALYSIS
Who wants the World Cup expanded?
If any proponent for an expanded World Cup watched the game between Panama and England, they would surely be having a rethink. England came up against a bunch of wrestlers and the worry is that we could end up with more Panamas, big on muscle but low on quality, when the World Cup eventually turns into a 48-team affair in the 2026 edition. A bigger World Cup might also mean more African representatives, but what would you rather have; more teams or better football?
Why VAR ultimately remains flawed
The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology was supposed to be the answer to all kinds of unfair refereeing decisions, but two weeks in, and it is anything but. There have been penalties given (and more importantly, not given), and as many as three potential red cards not given in the Spain-Morocco game. Granted, the center referees might have missed the incidents in question, but to think that the VAR team did not even deem it necessary to flag them for review means VAR could take us back where we are running from, where a referee deliberately or otherwise chooses to ignore an offence, to the cost or advantage of one team. Could these failures fast track us to a point where team captains or even coaches are allowed to petition for a VAR review?