Germany, cheerio!

Day 14 WorldCup2018

Where do I begin, to tell the story of a German team that is gone, gone so soon, gone before they had enough opportunities to win more matches in the last minute when they looked down and out, before they could beat England on penalties, before Brazil could get their revenge. Two things have happened before, and at, Russia 2018 that are a first in my lifetime: Italy didn't qualify and Germany are out in the first round.

And, again, VAR has to take part of the credit. If VAR hadn't been around to confirm South Korea's goal, Germany might have scored a late winner, denying Mexico the opportunity to lose in the last 16 again, and Sweden a very winnable match against Switzerland.

But South Korea's first goal was a goal and it led to the crazy situation of the second goal where I was yelling "shoot" at the TV when the Korean defender had the ball way closer to his penalty area than the German one.

Oh Germany, how? How could you have been that bad? Where did it come from? What changed in the last few months? After dominating their qualifying group, and winning the Confederations Cup with their second team,they seemed to lose their way in the last few friendlies. Something was up. Maybe they finally cracked under the Low expectations of being perfect all the time, hair and football.

And of course for all of Germany's misery there is another team's joy. Two teams' joy, really. Mexico were celebrating a 3-0 defeat to Sweden. And Sweden, what a way to come back from the psychological damage of that crushing defeat to Germany on Saturday. John Giudetti and Jimmy Durmaz are probably relishing the lifeline they've been handed. David Ginola never got that chance.

In other news that could only be seen as dull compared to the earlier bombshell, Brazil sauntered into the knockout round with a composed win against Serbia and Switzerland let Costa Rica leave the World Cup with a couple of goals in a 2-2 draw.

So the Swiss and the Swedes play each other in what could be regarded as a very good opportunity for either team to, a little surprisingly, reach the quarterfinals. Sweden are remembered as the reason for the Italians not being in Russia. As for Switzerland, a little reminder of how consistent they were in qualifying is needed. Their first match was an impressive win over the new European champions, Portugal. They then went on to win every match until the last one, the return against Portugal. That defeat meant they had to go through the playoffs, on goal difference. They are not spectacular but their ability to grind out results is pretty impressive.