I looked up some stats after the Brazil game, turns out there have only been two times that a non-European or South American team has ever reached the semi-final. The USA in 1930 (!, the very first WC) and South Korea in 2002 in their own country. Neither reached the final after that, and even getting to the quarter final is a rarity for North American, African or Asian (nevermind Oceanian) teams. The difference between them and the top two continents is huge. I'm not surprised at all that every non-European or South American team will be eliminated after today. This is why those final games of the group stage were misleading. I'm actually quite disappointed that apparently none of those that were already qualified after two matches did their sportive duty; sending out B-teams and not caring. This resulted in others being eliminated while winning their own final matches, and sure you can say teams like Uruguay and Germany shouldn't have let it get as bad as it did in the first place, but I'm still disappointed that apparently there's little will to win if you don't have to. Like, if they were a match in the knock-out round, France-Tunesia, Spain-Japan, Brazil-Cameroon and Portugal-South Korea would've been 3, 4, 5-0 each.

Anyway, besides that little rant, Netherlands were actually pretty decent against the USA. Best Netherlands game so far. The USA never had a chance. Still though, I'm not really assured of anything yet because we still have yet to play an actual top team. Argentina will be the first, and we'll see how that goes, I doubt we'll make it. Brazil yesterday was crazy, though the second half was a formality, they didn't even try anymore and were content with their four goals from the first half (which harkens back to my complaint about those final group matches). France was also on fire, I'd say they will be the final.

Well, there is a reason the Europeans and South Americans dominate, and are the only continents to have won World Cups.

Things are more competitive than they use to be, but it still is going to be years before a team from North America, Asia or Africa is serious contender for the trophy, let alone the winner of it. And its very unlikely that Oceania ever will be.

Yep, and this is why I just found people saying other continents would do well this tournament and Europe was overrated to be ridiculous. Like I'm definitely not anti-the other continents. I'd absolutely love it if a different team were to have a very successful run, would've loved to see Japan or Senegal or somebody win it. But I'm also realistic, Europe and South America are such a long way ahead still! Asia surprised me with how well they did this year, and they're still all out already.

It isn't just a team stat thing either, pull up any list of the top 100 players right now and see how much Europe/South America dominate that list. Even the North American, African & Asian countries that do have a world class player, or two, are usually limited to that many. The top European/South American sides have 11+ world class players across the pitch though. It's pretty ridiculous how much depth teams like France and Brazil have.

Best Oceanian teams have ever done is Australia reaching the Round of 16 in 2006. The 3 other times they (before they moved to the AFC) or New Zealand qualified they didn't make it out of the groups.

From 2026 Oceania do get a guaranteed place but I'll find it more interesting to see if any other Oceanian teams can shock New Zealand. The last rounds tend to be knock-out matches so it is possible for a one-off shock result. So far though, that's only happened once, in the 2012 OFC Nations Cup, where New Zealand were beaten int he semis which lead to Tahiti winning the tournament.

The OFC Nations Cup isn't a WC qualifier though. They do use the best nations in the Cup for the qualifiers, but they're still separate competitions. The time Tahiti won the Nations Cup they only got 3 points in their qualifying group while New Zealand won all 6 games (before losing to Mexico in the playoff).

Morocco are looking good so far against Spain, with Spain not getting many chances yet. All to play for in the second half and feels it could go either way.

Eh. Personally I'd much rather these smaller teams eliminating big teams in the group stage only to fall short in the first knockout round, than this becoming another glorified Euro like in 2018.

And it's not like they've been all bad, either. Korea looked bad yesterday, but you have to consider they were right off the heels of giving their everything and more against Portugal, whereas the Brazilian players had a whole week's rest before the game. Senegal was bad but they were missing many key players. Australia was bad but they at least kept the scoreline interesting. Poland was bad but we should ignore that because they're european. But. Morocco is giving Spain a tough game right now, and Japan was arguably better than Croatia yesterday, a shame they took their penalties with the same level of confidence a cat has trying to eat food from the corner of the plate.

Well done Morocco. Commiserations Spain.

But Spain seem to have a terrible record at penalty shootouts, even worse than England’s and that is saying something. They even previously lost one to England.

Well that was just sad.. can't stand to watch the football Morocco is playing anymore. I was waiting for higher quality matches.