One big question for every World Cup round-of-16 t...
Key takeaways
- Germany lost a shootout for the first time in World Cup history.
- The chaos is likely to continue, but even if it doesn't: we're still only four games into this thing, and four games isn't close to enough match time for us to produce any kind of confident conclusions about who is left.
- So, we're going to go a little deeper than the collective "what?" that you probably could've heard from outer space right after Morocco forward Ismael Saibari's penalty hit the back of the net.
Why this matters: a sports story that could shift standings, legacies, or fan conversations.
Canada, Paraguay and Morocco. Germany lost a shootout for the first time in World Cup history. Netherlands also lost a shootout -- and OK, fine, they always do that, but the forebears of Total Football played a game where they had only 32% possession, their lowest for any World Cup game on record. Also: Canada are currently the only team in World Cup history with a perfect, 100% win rate in knockout-round matches.
With its 20-something shots per game and its two or three goals, soccer is random enough as is, but introducing an extra single-elimination round to the World Cup has added another layer of volatility to the world's greatest sporting event. The chaos is likely to continue, but even if it doesn't: we're still only four games into this thing, and four games isn't close to enough match time for us to produce any kind of confident conclusions about who is left.
So, we're going to go a little deeper than the collective "what?" that you probably could've heard from outer space right after Morocco forward Ismael Saibari's penalty hit the back of the net. We're going to pinpoint the biggest question for each team that qualifies for the round of 16, and we'll be updating this page as more teams qualify, with the most recently qualified teams listed at the top.