Great groupspublished at 14:02 Greenwich Mean Time 3 December 2022
On the field, this World Cup sure has delivered some entertainment and drama so far.
Seven teams exited the tournament at the group stage this year after having earned four points. Used to be that you could be fairly confident of qualification with a tally like that. Not this year.
Pretty much every group went down to the wire, offering up gripping finales daily.
On Tuesday, England cruised but the USA were left hanging on. On Wednesday, Australia shocked Denmark and we almost had some fair play point shenanigans between Poland and Mexico. On Thursday, Japan binned off the Germans and Morocco and Croatia did for Belgium. And then yesterday, South Korea and Ghana combined to send Uruguay out and Switzerland came from behind to sneak through.
If the World Cup ended now, you wouldn't feel short changed by the actual football you've seen.