World Cup Group Stage Takeaways: Groups A-D

Photo from the BBC

Half of the group stages at the 2022 World Cup have finished, with half of the bracket now filled out for the knockout rounds.

An awful lot went down, so why not talk about it?

Here is what we learned from groups A through D.

Group A

Group A sort of went how I expected, with Holland winning the group and Senegal escaping just past Ecuador and Qatar winding up last.

But what did surprise me was how terrible Qatar truly was.

12 years ago, FIFA awarded the World Cup to Qatar and the nation dedicated all of their resources to build a quality national team, and to be fair they actually did a decent job.

The issue is, the host nation doesn’t have the qualify for the World Cup, so they never played an extremely important and meaningful game since the fruits of their labor came to fruition.

The result? The minute a ball was kicked here in Qatar they were by far the worst team in the tournament.

Never underestimate how important qualification is to the World Cup, especially for a newly decent international team.

It’s a whole different level of play when your back is against the wall.

Group B

I’m American, so I saw lots of fun takes about America so far in this World Cup. So let’s go over how the U.S. did in the group stage.

• Matt Turner: Great

• Defense: Very good

• Midfield: Absolutely outstanding

• Wingers: Good

• Tactics: Fantastic

The only issues were some poor substitutions and lack of goals, which isn’t surprising considering the striker struggles the United States had.

But don’t let anyone tell you Gregg Berhalter does not have this team playing well. It’s a complete lie.

As for England, they steamrolled Iran and Wales which is what they needed to do, but looking second class against the U.S. does leave me worried for when they face another top nation in the knockout rounds.

Group C

Speaking of Gregg Berhalter…

When Berhalter was hired for the U.S. job, Tata Martino was being hired for the Mexico job.

Many American fans were furious, as they felt Tata Martino was a significantly better manager than Berhalter.

Let’s go over Mexico under Tata Martino under the last two years.

• Lost the Nations League Final to the United States

• Lost the Gold Cup Final to the United States

• Became the first Mexican team in history to lose three games to the United States in one calendar year

• Failed to reach the knockout round for the first time in 42 years

Tata Martino is a good manager, but he is the worst in Mexican national team history.

Escaping the group was Argentina in Poland.

Poland has some issues, and Argentina may have lost to Saudi Arabia but they have looked significantly better since then.

Sometimes, it’s good to be humbled.

Group D

France became the reigning World Champion to reach the knockout rounds since 2006, and they had no issue doing so, but my goodness the stunner in this group was the Socceroos.

Australia had to fight for their lives to even MAKE the World Cup, and not exactly against the toughest competition.

I picked them to finish last in the group, and while I was thrilled to see them beat Tunisia, I didn’t have much faith that they would get past Denmark.

But get past they did, as they made the knockout round of the World Cup for just the second time in their history, while the European semifinalists Denmark fell short.

I love the World Cup.