Round of 16’s Ends, All 8 Group stage winners make it to Last 8

The first knock out stage Round of 16’s ended yesterday with winners of group stages defeating all the runners up and make it to quarter finals.  Since the inception of the knock out stages (round of 16’s) in 1986, this is the first time there will be no teams who finished as runners of the group stages in quarter finals. In past 4 teams that finished as runner up in group have made it to finals (86-Germany; 90-Argentian; 94-Italy; 06-France). The round of 16’s match results are shown in below table.

Team 1	Team 2	Venue	Winner	Goals
Brazil	Chile	Belo Horizonte	Brazil	(1-1) 3-2 Pen
Colombia	Uruguay	Rio de Janeiro	Colombia	2-0
Netherlands	Mexico	Fortaleza	Netherlands	2-1
Costa Rica	Greece	Recife	Costa Rica	(1-1) 5-3 Pen
France	Nigeria	Brasilia	France	2-0
Germany	Algeria	Porto Alegre	Germany	2-1
Argentina	Switzerland	Sao Paulo	Argentina	1-0
Belgium	USA	Salvador	Belgium	2-1

How did the Last 16 fixtures turned out to be.

Brazil vs Chile:  Close game which went to Spot kick. Chile had their flashes in the game most importantly at 121 minute shot hitting crossbar. Else Cesar GK for Brazil won it for Brazil.

Colombia vs Uruguay: Diego Forlan was expected to make up for suarez which he failed and that absence was well capitalized by Colombia and defeated Uruguay comprehensively. James Rodriguez scored 2 goals and currently leading golden boot table.

Netherlands vs Mexico:  Classic match, again Mexico shoots rockets and Netherlands having close range one on one battle. When everyone thought Mexico were to win sneijder, robben and  Huntelaar thought other way round and make Netherlands win. Almost every fan would have felt sorry for Mexico.

Costa Rica vs Greece:  One more encounter where all is not over until final whistle was witnessed. Costa rica scores and in injury time Greece equalize and take to penalties. But in penalties Costa Rica come out victorious.

France vs Nigeria:  An easy encounter (seemed to be) but Nigeria made France to wait till 80^th minute for a goal. Better luck next time Nigeria.

Germany vs Algeria: one word, Algeria stuns the world and Germany. The match that was widely expected to be raining goals for Germany turned out to be a test for them. Algeria put up an excellent defense and made Germany to push to extra time. Of course in extra time Germany scored twice and conceded once and emerged as winners. Neur was the man of the match as he performed the role of goal keeper, defender and Midfielder. If Germany intends to repeat the same performance then World cup is over for them.

Argentina vs Switzerland: How long will Messi carry you? Swiss played brilliantly and came close to scoring in 5 places. The games went to Extra time and at the dying moments of extra time Angel dima aria scores but did you think that was over, at 121 minute Swiss hit the cross bar scaring almost every Argentinean  players. So Argentina if they don’t scale Belgium will beat them for sure.

Belgium vs USA: As expected USA put a good show put Belgium scored twice in extra time and conceded once in extra time. So Belgium can cause a upset and that upset can be Argentina.

So with All group winners in the last 8, predicting the winners is going to be even more difficult as to be frank there will be no favorites in the quarter finals. Now when we go through the above results it is interesting to find the below facts.

• Only 3 Fixtures got completed in normal 90 minutes. Rest all matches made it extra time.
• Out of 5 Fixtures which went to extra time, 2 ended up in penalties.
• Teams Chile and Mexico opened the score line against Brazil and Netherlands, but they ended up losing with Chile losing in penalties and Mexico in Normal time.
• Thomas Mueller, Lionel Messi and Neymar did not score in this round, that gave James Rodriguez the advantage as he scored 2 goals and make it to top of the golden boot table.
• Except for Columbia, Argentina and France all other teams conceded goals.

So the below table indicates how the quarter finals fixtures appear to be.

Team 1	Team 2	Venue	Time
Germany	France	Rio de Janeiro	9:30 PM IST, 4th July Friday
Brazil	Colombia	Fortaleza	1:30 AM IST, 5th July Saturday
Argentina	Belgium	Brasilia	9:30 PM IST, 5th July Saturday
Netherlands	Costa Rica	Salvador	1:30 AM IST, 6th July Sunday

From the Above fixtures we can now say that Germany facing France will probably be the best fixture in the battle for the semi’s with Argentina vs Belgium to be in par with the First one. So the winners of the 1^st game will meet winners of the 2^nd game in semis and winner of the 3^rd game will meet winner of the 4^th game in semis. For now I would say this world cup has exceeded the expectations for the fans across globe.

So now it’s all up to the teams to perform on that particular day to get farther in the tournament. All teams will fight to make it to last 4 and then to final two and at last to become winners. All the best to teams and wish you good luck…