The World Cup shocks began with perhaps the greatest of all time, and then they kept on coming. First it was Saudi Arabia, stunning Argentina and Lionel Messi by ending their 36-match unbeaten run. Then, a day later, Japan upset Germany with another remarkable comeback at half time. By the end of the group stage, Japan had also beaten Spain to send Germany crashing out, Tunisia defeated the defending champions France, Morocco retired Belgium’s ‘golden generation’, and Cameroon recorded their first-ever win over the five-time winners Brazil.
On the pitch, the Qatar World Cup was becoming to be known as the tournament of unpredictability, with each shock a victory against the odds. The World Cup has a rich history of staging upsets of this scale, notably with Cameroon’s win over Argentina in 1990, Algeria’s against West Germany in 1982, even back to the USA’s result with England in 1950, but it seemed that in Qatar the upsets were being delivered with a thudding regularity. Then, once the chaos of the group stage calmed, Morocco beat Spain on penalties to reach the quarter-finals.
