Japan’s victory over Spain was another exemplary ‘smash & grab’ - and a lesson in geometry too. The Spaniards were fortunate to catch Costa Rica cold in the opening match. Great possession football, but unlike the 2008-12 (equally tedious) template, there’s little attacking threat.
Germany’s exit was no great surprise considering their recent WC/Euro record. They also have limited time to turn it around for their home Euro. However, Croatia should have too much tournament savvy for Japan.
No qualification for Ghana - but the next best thing in playing their part in sending perpetual cheats Uruguay packing. A tearful Luis Suárez must have been some consolation for Ghana at least.
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He had little ‘bite’ today 
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This is the schedule of the rest of the tournament (“The knock-out stage”)
We will start with the so-called Round of 16 (or Second Round) this afternoon. Virtually every game - possibly with the exception of Portugal - Switzerland) has a clear favorite. The favorites the reach the Quarter Finals are:
Netherlands, Argentina, Croatia, Brazil, England, France, Spain, Portugal/Switzerland
But this seems to be the tournamenet of major upsets with teams like Korea, Japan, Australia and USA qualifying for the round of 16 and teams like Germany, Belgium and Denmark sent home after the first round, so I’m sure this second round will offer some major surprises as well. Maybe this afternoon, with the US beating the mighty Orange?
We’ll see. Holland hasn’t been in great form lately and their performances on this World Cup haven’t been riveting so far, so if the Americans ever had the chance to beat them, this seems to be the moment.
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Like always I want England to win a tournament, and they were for a long time quite good in disappointing the expectations (for various reasons), an eternal quarter final team somehow, but now that Germany took over the disappointment task they filled the space with 2 half finals, and I hope they make that again.
My favourite final would be now England and the Netherlands, but I assume that Brasil will again win the title.
Brazil hasn’t been that impressive so far, and without Neymar they seem to lack creativity. All good players, but rather ineffective. If England and France win their second round game, they’ll bump into each other in the quarter finals. That would be a kind of bottleneck game for good old England, if they can win that crucial game, I can see them win the title. If Holland won’t make it untill the final stages (and I don’t think they will) I’ll support England as well.
Scherp, you are too pessimistic about the Netherlands, but of course, to reach the final they have to beat presumably Argentina and then Brasil.
Well, and in the first 2 games Brasil’s Allison had virtually nothing to do, and Poland had not the slightest chance against Argentina, with only one chance after a corner ball. Both never came in trouble when losing the ball, both had an impressive game control.
Well, it was fun while it lasted. 
Good luck to the fans of the teams that are left!
I work with a few Portuguese, so i’ll support Portugal.
What works in Brazil’s favor is that they have a relatively easy way to the semis: We’ve seen bizarre results on this World Cup, but I don’t think the Coreans stand any chance against them, and in the quarter finals they either meet Japan or Croatia. This Japanese fairy tale can’t go on forever and Croatia is not the same team that reached the final four years ago. So Brazil will either meet Argentina or Holland in the semi final (and most probably will be favorites to progress to the final). They haven’t impressed me in so far that I have seen better Brazilian teams and players in the past. All their players are skilled technicians, but I see no Ronaldo, Romario, Rivaldo, Roberto Carlos, Falcao, Jairzinho, etc. Only Neymar comes close. They better spare him the next few games so that he will be top fit for the semi-final and the final.
Mbappe looked great against Poland. Couple of really nice goals he bagged.
As surprising as some results were in the first round, so predictable they are in this second round so far, none of the outsiders (USA, Australia, Poland, Senegal) has been a real threat to the favorites Holland, Argentina, France, England … and the games were a big bore, in spite of a couple of great goals (the first Dutch goal, the first English goal, both goals by Mbappé)
Australia gaven 120% but they lacked pure quality to really worry Argentina.
Senegal did well for about 40 minutes; they were disciplined and even had the better chances, but then England scored and it all fell apart. That’s more or less the story of (Sub Sahara) African football.
So far this second seems a so-called measure for nothing. I wonder what Japan is capable of against Croatia tomorrow (I don’t really count on the Koreans to upset Brazil)
England struggled a little for the first 35, after that we had a really good game and it all came together. Got to say I’m a little worried about the coming clash with France though, but it should be an exciting game to see.
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If France come through a 50/50 quarter-final clash against England they’ll be strong favourites to retain the title. After that, either complacency or an injury to Mbappé is probably the biggest threat to an historic double.
England’s Achilles’ heel in WC/Euro is always the penalty shoot-out (W2 L7) - so any win will have to come in regulation. Get past France, and England may never have a better chance of finally winning another World Cup.
Portugal v Switzerland is another 50/50.
Brazil are well drilled and organised (albeit with a creaking backline) but lack the flair in the last third of the pitch. Although they should have enough to despatch any of the remaining teams from the weaker half of the draw.
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At least we had ONE real knock-out game in the round of 16: Japan gave Croatia a real fight, but they’ll have to practice a little on penalties if they ever want to reach the final stages of the World Cup.
Poor Korea had no chance at all against tournament favorites (along with France maybe) Brazil: 4-0 after 35 minutes (and the remainder was for the birds and even gave the Koreans the chance to score one back).
Today’s games:
Morocco - Spain and Portugal - Switzerland
Might be a bit more taut and tense than most matches so far in this Round of 16. Spain will have a lot of ball posession, and they’re certainly favorites to win, but Morocco have a fairly strong and well-organized team. Switzerland is a team that always does well on tournaments, especially against ‘stronger’ opponents (remember Euro 2021, when they eliminated France): they’re well-organized, have a few players with superb individual skills and a top keeper (Yann Sommer, hopefully he has recovered from the illness that kept him on the bench angainst Serbia)
So this is the suprise we were all waiting for in the Round of 16: Morocco kicking Spain out of the tournament
Was it a real surprise? I don’t know, Spain were most certainly dominating, but once again dominating without creating (anything): the best chances - even during the second half, when they were with their backs against the wall - were for the Moroccans. Spain was punished for their ineffectiveness, their passing game abilities might be impressive, but they’re completely inefficient, and that makes them also a dull team, quite a chore to watch them for over 120 minutes.
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Spain have one way of playing - possession football - and that’s it. Can’t do set pieces, can’t shoot outside the penalty area, no striker etc. Even the penalties were a microcosm of Spanish football, i.e. all the same.
Portugal’s performance against Switzerland was the most devastating seen so far at this World Cup. They look very dangerous dark horses.
Brazil’s disrespectful showboating against a spirited, yet utterly naive South Korea, may come back to bite them if they make the final.
Spain disappointed due to the fact that all lesser teams play against the favourites just a 9-1 or a 8-1-1 system, and many lesser teams are quite good in only defending and hoping for a successful counterattack.
And Spain was not good against such defenders, but I would like to have seen them playing against one of the other favourites.
The general problem of football is and was that not enough goals are scored, that superiority does not automatically result in goals, like in (all?) other collective sports. Still luck has more or less a lot to do with the outcome in football.
Whatever, we will see how Portugal fares against Marocco, if they can do better. I expected Portugal - Switzerland to become another tenacious game with probably no goals, but they surprised me.
So at least its not again only Europe and South-America in the quarter finals.
I still hope for a final England - Netherlands, but expect that Brasil and France will make it, cause of their greater individual class. They will be quite hard to beat, especially Brasil, but I have to admit I don’t want Brasil to win again.
That is of course true. If you see how many times the post or the cross bar was hit during this tournament, it would help a lot if they made the goals just a little bit bigger. Make them 10 centimeter wider and 5 centimeters higher and see what happens. Goal keepers have become taller (and more athletic) and - as you say - teams have become far more defensive over the years and some of them have turned defending into an art form (but it’s not the kind of art we like).
That said I still think Spain failed miserably: they dominated nearly the entire match, yet had only one or two shots at goal. They just seem to miss a decent centre forward (this Morata is a rather limited player) and have no-one who can shoot at goal from outside the penalty area. If that is the case, you make things very easy for a defensive force like Morocco.
They should make the goals much bigger, so big that one has a good chance to make a goal from 30 or 35 meters, so big that defending would require to keep the opponent as far away from the own goal as possible.
It would be more just and also more attractive, when the goal average per game would be around 6 - 8 instead of only 2 - 3.
