The18 World Cup Takeover

Belgium claimed top spot in Group G after defeating England 1-0 Thursday thanks to Adnan Januzaj’s beautiful 51st-minute curler. Michy Batshuayi celebrated the goal by thunder punting the ball off the post and back into his own face.  

If England and Belgium had played in the first match day for Group G, it probably would’ve been one of the best matches of the group stage. Instead, as the final match of the group stage, it turned into a bit of a bore. Belgium forward Michy Batshuayi perfectly summed up the feelings of fans everywhere with a celebration gone wrong. 

With one thrilling upset and a few hearty dances, Senegal quickly became a fan favorite at the 2018 World Cup. Sadly, after a 1-0 win for Colombia vs Senegal, the Lions of Teranga are going home in the most excruciating way possible — FIFA fair play points.

Senegal and Japan finished tied in every way imaginable except for one. The two finished with the same number of points, goal differential, goals scored and head-to-head tiebreakers. 

You know in FIFA when you strike the perfect ball and the goalkeeper really shouldn’t even have time to react but instinctively leaps sideways and backwards and claws out your shot with a preposterous bit of animation that makes your blood curl? Well that just happened to Poland’s Kamil Grosicki but in real life.

The Polish attacker really should’ve scored with this perfectly placed header, but Japan’s Eiji Kawashima sprinted across his goal-line, went full extension and pawed it out with a monstrous right claw. This is what’s referred to as slamming the door shut.   

After Argentina versus Nigeria, a journalist approached Lionel Messi and asked him a question. A few days previous, the same man had given the player a piece of red thread, a good luck charm passed along by his wife. In the aftermath of the forward’s fantastic goal, helping Argentina to qualify for the next round, the journalist asked whether Messi remembered the gift.

We will have no back-to-back champions. We will have no Germany 7 — Brazil 1. We will have no Thomas Muller doing silly things at the Munich Hofbräuhaus. Everything is different now.