The “full mark” has been absent for 28 years

Reda Saleem (Dubai)

The first round of the “World Cup” witnessed countless surprises, foremost among which was the absence of a “full score” from any team in all groups, which has not happened in all versions of the World Cup since 1994 in America, in which 24 teams participated, i.e. 28 years ago. Where the fans following the event were waiting for Brazil to beat Cameroon, but the “samba” stopped dancing, and lost with a goal in the last minute. In addition to that, for the first time, the “World Cup” witnessed teams obtaining 4 points in the group, and despite that, the championship was called out through the back door. .
Although the phenomenon is rare in recent versions, it has occurred for the fourth time since the start of the group stage in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, and it was also repeated in the 1962 World Cup held in Chile, and the 1994 America’s version, and this is the fourth time.
The Netherlands, England and Morocco topped their groups with 7 points, while Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, France and Japan each got 6 points, after suffering one defeat each.
Among the phenomena is the exit of large teams that were candidates to win the title, led by Germany, which repeated the scenario of the World Cup Russia 2018, which also happened with Uruguay, Belgium, Mexico, Ecuador, Cameroon and Tunisia, and the four points achieved by 7 teams did not qualify for the second round.
The round of sixteen witnessed the qualification of teams that were far from the nominations, including America, Senegal, Australia, South Korea and Morocco, which saved face for the Arabs in the “2022 edition”, and all of them qualified at the expense of teams that were nominated to go far in the tournament.