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FIFA World Cup 2018: Heavyweights face shock exits

Dunya News

Some of the favorites for lifting the trophy have already been knocked out of the FIFA World Cup.

(WebDesk) – Oh my, oh my! When the FIFA world cup kicked off on 18th June, no one expected the tournament to be heading into such an unknown, topsy-turvy direction. After every match, fans are being left absolutely shell shocked with what they are witnessing, the gamblers are unsure of who to put their money on and the underdogs are injecting faith in themselves to go all the way to the Final in Moscow.

So far, the 11th edition has produced overwhelming results resulting in shock exits. Until today, this World Cup has seen holders Germany being kicked out in the very first round, Spain hanging their boots early and of course, the end of both Messi and Ronaldo’s campaign.

With these four fan-favorites out of the cup, the tournament is thrown wide open for a few of the underdogs.

Where the tournament currently stands, has turned the heads of a large amount of people and rightly so. Here we look at what went wrong for each of the four giants.

Germany

Perhaps the greatest shock in a major tournament for quite some time came when South Korea beat Germany by two goals to send the Europeans packing early. The result stunned world football for some time and caused havoc amongst the fans who weren’t ready to accept what had happened with their team.

If one sees things critically, the ‘shockout’ was pretty much on the cards for the Germans.

Great dependence on star players

Even though one could argue that almost the entire team is filled with superstars playing almost all over the world, there is no doubt that Joachim Low depended highly on experience campaigners for the right results.

2014 German heroes were a shadow of their former selves in Russia. Photo: Goal.com

Thomas Muller, who scored an impressive five goals in the previous tournament could not even manage that many attempts this time around and was ultimately, dropped in the last game against South Korea. Similar was the case for assist king Mesut Ozil, who seemed like a shadow of his former self. The 29-year-old was poor throughout the group stage and was deservedly axed from his team’s last minute win over Sweden. Sami Khedira was no better either as the 31-year-old proved that he wasn’t up to the pace of the opposition midfield.

Joachim Low off with his changes

Germany’s coach Joachim Low opted for young forward Timo Werner and even though he injected a good amount of pace he was nowhere as clinical as veteran Mario Gomez could have been. Low missed another trick by dropping another attacking option Leroy Sane from the World Cup squad.

Joachim Low wasn t able to execute his tactics properly. File: Sport360

A lack of confidence amongst the players forced Low to rotate his XI all the time The result was that there were only three outfield players who started every match as Germany s embarrassment of riches morphed into mere embarrassment very soon.

Argentina

A scrappy looking Argentina managed to find their way through the group stage but what came after was no shock. The way the South Americans were playing, it was obvious that France would eventually knock them out in the round of 16, and that they most expertly did. Many feel that the Argentinians shouldn’t have even escaped the group stage with the way the players were putting them on the field.

The coach controversy

Controversy between Sampaoli and the players arose recently. Photo: AS English

Much of Argentina’s sorry display on the field has to be blamed for what was happening amongst the coach and players off the field. Jorge Sampaoli was seemingly unsure of his starting XI and even made questionable substitutions.

After the game against Nigeria, rumors emerged that some dispute with the coach had led the team into trusting star player Lionel Messi into making the decisions. Therefore, team for the match against France was collectively selected, according to reports, but that, too, had no effect on the eventual result.

Messi & 45 million expectations

Messi, alone, carried 45 million hopes and dreams. Photo: Twitter

 Prior to the start of the tournament, many experts and analysts believed that Messi could once again provide the magic and help his team through to the later stages of the cup but as it eventually turned out, Messi could not live up to fans’ expectations and played way below his best.

Overdependence on Messi meant that game plans could not be executed properly in games where the 31-year-old failed to put up a show. Argentina’s ultimate exit highlighted a lack of unity, faith and discipline.

Portugal

Portugal came into the round of 16 on the back of a narrow win, a frustrating stalemate and an exciting draw. These results meant that the Portuguese had to play much better to beat an inspired Uruguay unit who had won all their matches without conceding even a single goal.

On the day, however, Portugal lost 2-1 and were knocked out of the tournament crushing their fans’ hopes and dreams once and for all.

Ronaldo the savior, Ronaldo the villain

Ronaldo was the main man in Portugal s campaign but he alone could not do enough for his national side. Photo: Digitalsporty

Such was the influence of Cristiano Ronaldo that when the 33-year-old performed, Portugal won, when the defence held him, they drew, and when he disappointed, they lost. In almost every game it seemed as though entire teams were playing against just one man on and off the field.

Such one sided dependence led to a lack of unity which ultimately bore heavy and dire circumstances for the entire nation.

Portugal’s pace backfires

Pace has been defined as Portugal’s main strength for almost a decade now but seemingly that came to haunt them this time around. Committing men forward and using attacking full backs threw the rather vulnerable defence wide open that ultimately cost the team.

The defence conceded six goals, managing just a single clean sheet in the four matches that were played by the Portuguese; a stat that speaks for itself.

Spain

With big guns like Germany, Argentina and Portugal well out of the World Cup, it was time for Spain to step up to the occasion and claim what was once theirs. But exactly the opposite happened. The Spanish national team lacked both passion and flair in the do-or-die encounter against hosts, Russia. Russians took advantage of the baffled unit and eventually won on penalties to knock Spain out of the tournament.

Taking sides easy

Confidence is a good thing but overconfidence can literally break a team and that is exactly what happened with Spain. It seems as though Spain took the tasks a bit too easy for their own liking and had to pay the price in the end.

A star-studded squad could only manage a draw against a low-ranked team like Morocco and were also beaten by Russia simply because they undermined the opposition.

Fernando Hierro appointed as coach two days before the World Cup

Hierro was appointed as coach just two days before the World Cup. Photo: myKhel

The team’s fans would argue that Spain produced such mediocre results because the players did not have the time to gel under the philosophy of their new coach and well, they might just be right.

Julen Lopetegui was sacked just a couple of days before the start of the world cup which meant that new coach Fernando Hierro had to adjust to new conditions very quickly; something he couldn’t evdently do in time.

Written by: Raacikh Asghar

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