Surprises and goals galore: A dazzling World Cup that’s worth staying up for

FOR many football fans around the world, the past fortnight has been one sleepless night after another. The Fifa World Cup in North America has turned work and personal schedules and routines topsy-turvy, and there are still more than three weeks of this breathtaking tournament left to savour.

The expanded group stage and its bumper crop of 72 matches will wrap up this weekend, with the excitement and drama of the knockout rounds coming up next. 

Things are simpler from the Round of 32 onwards: only the winners progress, while the losers must fly home. There are no more draws, and it’s a certainty that some matches will need extra time or a penalty shootout to separate the teams.

BT Weekend has been following the bulk of the matches over the last two weeks, and here’s a brief recap of what’s been a fascinating World Cup so far.

Most impressive team: France

The French have certainly lived up to their billing as the favourites to win the trophy for a third time. Les Bleus have one of the deepest and most talented squads of the 48 nations, with manager Didier Deschamps enjoying the luxury of swapping out one world-class player for another whenever he wants.

Kylian Mbappe is a striker on fire and his four goals in two matches puts him right in the frame for the coveted Golden Boot award. Michael Olise is pulling the strings in midfield and his three assists puts him level with Brazil’s Bruno Guimaraes and Sweden’s Alexander Isak.

It will take something really special to get the better of France, and no one will want to face this team at the moment.

Worst team: Tunisia

Tunisia qualified for the World Cup in dominant fashion, collecting 28 points out of a maximum of 30 and did not concede a single goal in the qualifying rounds. Much was expected of this young and well-drilled African team, but they lost all three group matches to Sweden, Japan and the Netherlands.

They even sacked their manager Sabri Lamouchi after the first loss (a 5-1 defeat to Sweden) and replaced him with French veteran Herve Renard. Even so, that change did nothing to change their fortunes.

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They head home with their tail between their legs, a minus-10 goal difference and zero points to show for their efforts.

Biggest surprise: Cape Verde

The tiny island-nation of Cape Verde are playing in the World Cup for the first time, and hardly anyone gave them much of a chance against former champions Spain and Uruguay in their first two group matches. The Blue Sharks (Cape Verde’s nickname) had other ideas and stayed unbeaten against those more established opponents.

Their 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha produced a performance for the ages against Spain, repelling everything that the reigning European champions could throw at him as the game somehow finished goalless.

Cape Verde followed that up by taking the lead against Uruguay and then fighting back after going behind to claim another point in a wild 2-2 draw. They have given themselves a fighting chance of reaching the knockout stage and no one could have said that with any confidence before the tournament began.

Best goal: Lionel Messi (vs Austria)

This wasn’t the most spectacular goal scored at the World Cup, but it was certainly the most significant. Argentina’s Lionel Messi’s first of his two goals against Austria took him past Germany’s Miroslav Klose to become the tournament’s all-time leading scorer.

The 39-year-old Messi missed an earlier chance to break the record after he scuffed a penalty kick wide, but he later made amends with a beautiful, first-time left-footed strike that sailed into the bottom left corner past goalkeeper Alexander Schlager.

Messi added a second-half goal to take his overall tally to 18, two ahead of France’s Mbappe (who is now level with Klose on the top scorers list).

Most entertaining match: Morocco 4-2 Haiti

This was a scintillating match to savour, especially for the neutrals. Morocco and Haiti served up a feast of goals, and all credit goes to Haiti for putting up such a brave fight even though they knew they were already eliminated.

Haiti’s Wilson Isidor scored a cracker of a goal from outside the box that is easily in contention for being the tournament’s best. That gave Haiti a shock 2-1 lead, and goalkeeper Johny Placide did his part with eight saves to keep the minnows in contention.

In the end, Morocco did enough to take maximum points and book a place in the Round of 32, while a plucky Haiti side created plenty of memories that will last a lifetime for their players and fans.

Biggest snoozefest: England 0-0 Ghana

This was such a boring match that it’s amazing that some broadcasters were even able to squeeze out two minutes to make a highlights reel. England had close to 80 per cent of the possession and fired 19 shots at the Ghanaian goal, but still failed to make a breakthrough.

The Africans themselves offered very little as they barely had much of the ball to begin with. The nearly 64,000 spectators at a packed Boston Stadium – many of them from England – left despondent after enduring a toothless and frustrating stalemate.