Bobfoc

No teams have won three out of three in the group stage this year. I wonder if that's ever happened before. Only five teams have been unbeaten as well.

Apart from CONCACAF, every represented confederation in this tournament has at least two teams in the knockout stages. That's a good sign for world football.

And other c-words.

By my count, there are only six unbeaten teams at the World Cup now.

East Asia 2-0 Nations Bordering the Iberian Peninsula

If Portugal don't win this, Brazil will be the only team with a chance to win three out of three group matches.

Another Game Pass addition will be Monster Hunter Rise in January.

And missing it as well.

Is that a good thing or not?

I wonder what odds you could have got on Japan losing to Costa Rica and still winning the group.

This is the sort of final group game drama the three-team groups will lack. I love all the topsy-turvy variables of the simultaneous matches.

Spain might be happier finishing second. They'd fancy their chances more against Morocco than against Croatia.

Not any more.

Japan and Costa Rica qualifying from this group ahead of Spain and Germany would be amazing.

I know there's a long way to go, but Spain not winning the group after battering Costa Rica and drawing against Germany would be a huge upset.

So close to another there.

Hot Wheels Unleashed is also coming on 15th December. I've heard good things about that.

I do wonder how Belgium might have performed over the last ten years with better management. Marc Wilmots was never well regarded as a manager in Belgium, and I don't think anyone would consider Martinez to be anything special either. He did a good job for a while at Wigan, but I don't think Everton fans would ever think of him as a potential winner of major tournaments. I think 2018 has been the only competition in which Belgium have met expectations in that period. Quarter-final exits in 2014, 2016 and 2020 put them in a similar bracket to that of England's "golden generation".

Sixteen European nations will qualify for the next World Cup, compared with thirteen now. It will only be slightly easier for European teams to get to the World Cup. Contrast that with CONCACAF, which will have six automatic qualifiers, up from three, and AFC, which will have eight automatic qualifiers, up from four. I think one of the big goals of the new format is to ensure that teams with massive potential markets, such as USA and China, are either more likely or more or less guaranteed to qualify. Without wanting to be a snob about it, it does very much tilt the balance in favour of non-European nations that probably wouldn't have much hope of qualifying in the European section.

They do that in the Papa Johns Trophy over here. I think it was an attempt to make the competition more interesting, but most fans still don't care about it.

Oh, you're right. I don't know how I confused Tunisia with Australia.

Another yellow for Poland now.

Speaking of which, Poland are now ahead of Mexico on the basis of having fewer yellow cards.

Look at this terrible one-man team.

I hope Poland get at least a point from this. France v Argentina is a more interesting second round match than Tunisia v Argentina.