'A controversial Japan goal cost Germany dear, but with wins against both them and Spain, Japan deserve their place in the knockout stages of the 2022 World Cup.' twoht
. The four-team group format has worked perfectly well for decades. A 48-team tournament can also be played as twelve groups of four with best-ranked third-placed teams making up the numbers for a second round of 32. Sure enough, this will be a bloated tournament with too many competing teams, but the issue with that isn’t whether there will three or four teams in each group, it’s with there being 48 teams taking part in the first place.
when it comes to the whole of the ball crossing the whole of the line – before being turned in from close range by Ao Tanaka. Then, in the space of four minutes, Costa Rica came from a goal down to lead Germany 2-1. Then Germany equalised. Then they took the lead. It was becoming something of a challenge to keep pace with the bewildering array of possible permutations.
Of course, the post-match controversy concerned that second Japanese goal. Was it in or was it out? We might have assumed that pictures would have been made confirming exactly what the basis of this decision might have been, but these weren’t forthcoming from FIFA. The issue may well be what is ultimately a fundamental principle of the game, that the referee cannot blow the whistle unless they are certain something has definitely has happened.
Japan play Croatia, and may fancy their chances of making it to the quarter-finals against an ageing European team which failed to score in two of their three group matches.
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