Chapter 592: Group Situation
After the first two rounds of the World Cup, 6 teams have advanced ahead of schedule and 8 teams have exited early, and the World Cup game is getting better.
From the current point of view, Spain, France, Brazil, and Mexico may become the top 4 teams.
The situation in Group A is very clear, with hosts Russia and Uruguay having won two games and six points and have already secured two qualifying places, while Egypt and Saudi Arabia have lost two games and have already confirmed their place in the knockout round.
In the final round, Russia will play Uruguay, who are currently at the top of the table with a goal difference of seven and basically locked up the top spot in the group.
Uruguay will only finish second in the group unless they beat Russia by more than three goal difference.
And Saudi Arabia and Egypt will fight for honor in the final match of this World Cup.
In Group B, Spain and Portugal currently have four points and a goal difference of one, ranking the top two in the group.
The third-ranked Iranian team has been eye-catching in this World Cup, beating Monaco by one goal and currently sitting third with three points.
Theoretically, all three teams could qualify for the round of 16, with Iran meeting Portugal in the final round, with a draw to qualify from the group, while Iran will have to win to qualify for the round of 16 from Spain.
Spain will face Monaco, who are bottom of the group, and a draw will guarantee qualification.
After two rounds of matches, France are top of Group C with six points, Denmark are second with four points from one draw and one win, while Australia is third with one point, and Peru has lost their chance to qualify for the knockout rounds.
France will face Denmark in the final round, with a draw to qualify, while Australia will need to take all three points against Peru if they want to progress, and will also be hoping for a 2-0 win over Denmark.
Due to Argentina's poor performance at this World Cup, the final round of Group D matches will be in the spotlight.
Croatia have won both games to secure top spot in the group, Nigeria has only three points, and the second place in the group is not secure, and Iceland and Argentina can beat Nigeria to advance as long as they can win in the final round.
In the final round, Iceland will play Croatia, and Croatia have made it clear that the players who received yellow cards in the group stage will definitely not play in the final round, which means that nearly half of the team's main players are absent, which also gives Iceland a chance to win.
Nigeria only need to draw with Argentina to qualify as group runners-up, and the current pressure in Group D is Argentina, who have only one point from the first two rounds, and must beat Nigeria in the last game of the narrow road, and need to score more goals, and only by suppressing Iceland on goal difference can Argentina qualify for the round of 16.
The situation in Group E can be described as quite chaotic, with Brazil, Switzerland and Serbia all likely to progress from the group, with the exception of Costa Rica, who have already been confirmed out.
In the final round, Brazil will face Serbia, and the tough style of play shown by Serbia in the first two games is likely to cause a lot of problems for Brazil, and if Brazil loses, they are likely to be squeezed out of the round of 16 by Serbia and Switzerland.
The only uncertainty is that Shaqiri and Xhaka have a controversial celebration after scoring in the last round, and Serbia has protested to FIFA, and the two are likely to be banned by FIFA.
If Switzerland loses to Costa Rica and Serbia draws with Brazil, Switzerland is likely to be eliminated on goal difference.
Group F has attracted much attention because of the presence of the defending German team, and after beating Sweden in the second round, Loew's Germany finally struggled back from the death line and retained a chance to advance.
In the final round, Germany meets South Korea, while Mexico will face Sweden, and the only certainty at the moment is that Mexico will qualify with a draw.
In the most extreme case, Germany and Sweden both win, tied with Mexico on six points, and the three teams will determine the advancing team through goal difference, goals scored, etc.
At the other extreme, Germany and Sweden lost at the same time, tied with South Korea with three points, and the three teams could only win by a small score.
England and Belgium in Group G have already secured places in the round of 16, so the third round of fixtures in this group will not have an impact on the situation, and England and Belgium will face off in the final round.
And the matchup between Tunisia and Panama is completely a battle of honor for both teams.
After a 3-0 defeat to Colombia in Group H, Poland became the first European team to be eliminated from the World Cup.
Lewandowski, who has the best scorer in Europe, has only scored one goal, and the performance of the seeded Poland team is really disappointing.
Japan and Senegal are in the top two of the group with four points, while Colombia is third with three points, both of which retain their hopes of qualifying.
In the final round, Japan will face Poland, while Senegal will face Colombia.
Japan and Senegal can qualify if they draw, and if Japan loses to Poland, Colombia and Senegal can advance together, and all three teams still have the possibility of qualifying!
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After two rounds of the group stage of this World Cup, there have been a lot of interesting things, the first thing is that there are many penalties!
The penalties in the two rounds of the group stage exceeded the sum of the previous editions, and 15 were scored in the first two rounds of the group stage in Russia after a total of 18 penalties were awarded in the first two rounds of the group stage.
This figure is 5 more than the total number of penalties in the last World Cup in Brazil, directly tying the most penalties in the history of the World Cup.
The record for the most penalties in World Cup history was the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, where a referee awarded a total of 18 penalties.
Judging from the current trend of 0.56 penalties per game in the World Cup in Russia, the total number of penalties at the end of this World Cup may be as high as 34.
The first penalty of this World Cup came in the classic battle between Portugal and Spain, where Cristiano Ronaldo made the fastest penalty of the 2018 World Cup and scored it himself.
The reason for so many penalties in this World Cup is the emergence of VAR, which has made many fouls that would have been let go by the referee on duty in the past, and it is difficult to escape the eyes of the law because of the video replay, and it is natural that the number of penalties will increase.
The World Cup has also set an interesting record so far, with goals scored in 32 matches up to the end of the second round of the group stage.
This is the first time in the history of the World Cup, and this record is partly thanks to VAR technology.
In this World Cup in Russia, the record of goals scored per game has reached an incredible high.
This also had a lot to do with the introduction of VAR technology, with many penalty opportunities that could have been missed in the past being seized by the video assistant referee, which also contributed to a lot of goals.
In terms of goals, 76 goals have been scored in 32 games in the first two rounds of the group stage, with an average of more than two goals per game.
In addition to the large number of goals in this World Cup, the number of upsets is also a very obvious feature.
The first round was a big surprise, with Germany, Brazil and Argentina all failing to win in the first round, while defending champions Germany lost directly to Mexico and Poland became the first seeded team to go out.
In addition to Germany's upset loss, Argentina was forced to draw by Iceland in the first round, Croatia was defeated by three goals in the second round, Brazil was forced to draw by Switzerland, and Spain almost lost in the face of Iran.
The group stage of this World Cup is not over, there have been 5 own goals, in the third game of this World Cup there was a fatal own-goal, Morocco vs Iran game, Morocco took the advantage, but in injury time Buhadouz in the penalty area in the penalty area to clear the ball accidentally put the ball into his own goal.
Iran ended a 16-match winless run for Asian teams with this goal, and since then, there has been a steady stream of own goals in the game.
In the first two rounds of the World Cup, most of the other matches were within one goal, except for the group matches between Russia and Saudi Arabia, England and Panama and Tunisia.
So far, there have been six last-minute matches in the World Cup, which is quite rare in previous World Cups.
That also included Neymar's extraordinary-long stoppage-time winner, which is also considered to be a goal that will be difficult to surpass in World Cup history.
The first stunner in this World Cup began with Morocco's match against Iran, where the Moroccans scored their own goal, and then Uruguay and Egypt won by a header from centre-back Jimenez.
The most impressive goals came from Brazil and Germany, with Philippe Coutinho volleying home in stoppage time against Costa Rica, Neymar netting again in the 97th minute, Germany scoring late against Sweden through Kroos and Saudi Arabia beating Egypt 2-1 in the battle of honour.
So far in this World Cup, the situation of top strikers chasing me is also very exciting, Jones has scored 5 goals in two games to lead the scorer list, Kane, Cristiano Ronaldo and Belgium's Lukaku have scored 4 goals in two games, which is very remarkable.
It's very difficult to score goals in a World Cup, and if a team reaches the final or the third or fourth place final, they only have seven games in total.
In the 2002 Japan-South Korea World Cup, Ronaldo scored a total of 8 goals, and usually, he can be called a top scorer if he can score 5 goals in a World Cup.
For example, Germany striker Muller scored five goals each at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
If nothing else, the Golden Boot at this World Cup will surely break the individual goal record of recent World Cups.