July 24, 2023

WWC: First round of the group stage

It’s near the end of the first round of the group stage games and I’m not really sure what to say yet. Initially, I was underwhelmed. There have been a few weird points. Nothing bad, everything has just felt slightly off?

Is it the cooler weather? Of the 32 countries represented, four are either home (New Zealand and Australia), or have similar weather this time of year at home (South Africa & Argentina). The rest are either from tropical areas or the Northern Hemisphere. It’s got to be a little dysregulating to go from *checking the news* record breaking high temperatures across the Northern hemisphere to 40°-50°F and rainy. It hurts my joints just watching it.

If not the weather, is it something with the atmosphere? Of the visiting countries, the closest are Philippines and Vietnam, ranked 46 and 32 respectively. Both are strongly underdogs, and may not have a big fan base traveling to the matches. Neither co-host country is considered a hotbed for soccer/football fans. But unlike Qatar, who similarly weren’t bringing much in the way of local fans, Australia and New Zealand are quite far from most of the countries represented¹ and neither an easy nor cheap trip. That could result in fewer folks from the passionate fan bases present, more casual local fans, and a different energy in the stadium.

Maybe they just saw that one picture of the super buff kangaroo² and all the visiting teams and officials are feeling slightly unsettled. What exactly do I mean by “slightly off”? Let me dive in further.

Officiating

The officiating hasn’t been horrendous unilaterally, but it’s been…weird. I can’t even remember how many VAR (video assistant referees) reviews we’ve had so far? Most of which I would say were correct, in my expert opinion. Some of which should have been called the first time around.

FIFA is doing something new this Cup, with the officials announcing their decisions after VAR review. I’m not sure how I feel about it honestly. They’re announcing in english, but few speak english as their first language, and that feels unfair.

It’s also clear they haven’t been given a set script, because they are all using slightly different phrasing. One will say, “After review, the decision is [something]” and the next says “From VAR review, my decision is [something else]” plus add an explanation (which I’ve never heard because the crowd usually makes noise at this point).

If nothing else, it feels like extra incentive to get the first call right so you don’t have to do that part, announcing to the audience in person and on TV, because oh god, it looks awful.³ Instead, it feels like there have been more. I can’t tell if that’s just in my head, but I feel like few of the games have ever really hit their stride because there’s been so many long stoppages for reviews.

Even beyond the numerous VAR reviews, the calls in general have been odd. Shaky at best. During the England game against Haiti, the official indicated the wrong team on a foul. Lots of questionably rough plays going unacknowledged. One Fox commentator during the USWNT match posited that the US team pulled back a bit and played safe because the official was letting too many rough challenges go. The result was a comparatively modest scoreline of USA 3 to Vietnam 0.

I also want to get into the fact that it feels like black players are the only ones getting disciplined, often unfairly, it feels, but that’s an entire dispatch subject on its own.⁴ Suffice it to say, all three red cards so far this Cup have gone to black players, and at least one, against Bunny Shaw for Jamaica, was soft at best.

Dominant teams can’t get goals

The dominant teams cannot find the back of the net in the run of play. Or, in Japan’s case, can’t catch an onside-break.⁵

The biggest goal-differential came from Germany, ranked 2nd in the world, who beat Morocco, ranked 76, by a 6-0 scoreline, but that included two really painful own-goals from Morocco players.

There were a lot, however, of penalties. The first 8 games all had at least one, though a surprising number of those penalties were saved. Not all of them though: multiple first round games were decided by penalties, with the penalty being the only goal of the game.

Penalties aside, only 6 games out of the 15⁶ so far have had a goal difference greater than one. At this point in the 2019 WWC, we’d had 38 goals, 6 more than this time around, but four of the 32 goals were scored on penalties.

So what’s happening? Are the teams we expected to be dominant just not what they were? The last few years have been hard (on all of us) for sure. The game was disrupted. The Olympics happened a year late, several teams had major organizational shake-ups, the pandemic obviously limited a lot of competitions and I imagine will reverberate through many areas of our lives for years to come, and injuries among the top teams have felt like a mini-epidemic in the sport.

Is it the vibes? Are the vibes just off? Has someone tried shutting the vibes off for 30 seconds and then turning them back on?

Or.

Is it actually the signal of something exciting happening in the game at large? Is the difference between a team ranked 40th (Nigeria) and a team ranked 7th (Canada) just not the expansive gulf it was even just four years ago? Is it a sign that actually, the dominant teams are just as strong as they’ve been, but the underdogs are not quite so far behind?

Underdogs have some bite

Speaking of the underdogs: There has been some amazing play by the lower ranked teams. While there haven’t been any truly dramatic “upsets”⁷, they have really frustrated the play of the big teams.

The stars of the first round of group play for me were the keepers for all the underdog teams. If you look at just the scoreline for the game between Spain and Costa Rica (3-0), it doesn’t look great. But what if I told you that Spain took 46 shots, 12 on target, and Costa Rica’s 26 year old keeper Daniela Solera saved 10, including a penalty by Spain veteran, Jenni Hermoso? Absolutely stunning.

Canada and Nigeria went scoreless after Chiamaka Nnadozie saved a penalty from Canada GOAT, Christine Sinclair. The Haitian keeper Kerly Théus saved the first PK by England’s Georgia Stanway, but after the match official called encroachment⁸, Stanway sent a scorcher into the same left corner and secured England’s victory.

Beyond the keepers being brick walls, the underdog teams in nearly every match have kept things locked down. It’s not making for particularly fun football to watch, I’ll be honest. But it’s impressive nonetheless. The higher-ranked teams have not been able to get into their rhythm, haven’t been able to really take control of the game, even when they’ve had the bulk of the possession. It almost feels like the underdogs have swapped notes at times, with similar approaches and tight defenses.

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I’m curious to see if things open up as the group stage progresses. Keeping things tight, with tight draws and losses will only take the underdogs so far. It’s certainly been interesting to watch, and if you’re someone like me, who will root for the underdog to a pathological extent, it’s been quite satisfying to see more close games and fierce competition throughout the first round.

(NB: I said I wouldn’t be researching as deeply, but I can’t help myself. I’ll do better at being spontaneous on the next one. Maybe.)