This week saw the conclusion of the tournament’s group stage followed by the beginning of the knockout games, as the pressure began to build on teams with high expectations back home.
We’ve seen fantastic underdog stories and dramatic exits from some nations that were originally thought to be in it to win it.We lost three huge tournament names at the very first hurdle when the group stage concluded.
Germany, Belgium and Uruguay were all teams expected to progress from the groups and were teams tipped to go potentially quite deep into the tournament, but for one reason or another they didn’t quite live up to potential.Germany finally got a win on the board in their final group game against Costa Rica.
Kai Havertz was the star man in their 4-2 victory at Al Bayt, but it wasn’t enough for the Germans after Spain lost 2-1 to Japan in the group’s other final game.