WC 2022: The Ghana wordplays have been exhausted

Portugal - South Korea 1-2

Uruguay - Ghana 2-0

I have yet to see the conclusion of Brazil's group, I'm watching Switzerland - Serbia as I write this, so I will assess how far off the mark I was in my predictions of the last 16 tomorrow.

I started watching Portugal - South Korea, but after Portugal scored within 5 minutes, I switched to Uruguay - Ghana, as that's the game that will decide the second team to qualify from the group, I thought. Well...

Uruguay - Ghana was an interesting game in itself, without even considering the stakes. Strong echoes of the 2010 quarter-final, made all the more so by the penalty for Ghana. Now, I don't know why Ayew - the only Ghanian player to have played in the 2010 game - shot such a piss-poor penalty. Was he manifesting the collective trauma of the nation, or was it just God pulling a funny? I mean, you're a professional footballer, at a World Cup, you should be able to shake off the pressure. Ayew wasn't.

Then VAR intervened with the offside that never was, but nothing changed but the public's opinion of the overall efficiency of the organizers of this World Cup. It was a clear penalty I thought, as were the two that Uruguay should have had, for the fouls on Darwin Nunez and Cavani in the second half. And normally it shouldn't matter, but now that Uruguay went out on goal difference, they are fully entitled to complain about being eliminated on refereeing mistakes. Of course, the Ghanaians might feel vindicated, in as much as they care at all.

How did South Korea beat Portugal? Normally I'd say it smells like FIFA corruption, which might well be, but I also wouldn't discount the Portuguese sloppiness. knowing they're already qualified. The Koreans brought back their own echoes of 2002 when they reached the semi-finals without deserving it in the least. Did they deserve it this time? I don't think so. Lost to Ghana, were lucky to draw Uruguay, and got three points against a clearly superior team that was playing without a stake. That second place always looked like it was gonna be between Ghana and Uruguay, and the direct game showed Uruguay to be the more deserving team. Turns out, their sub-par performance against South Korea came back to bite them in the ass. 

A sad exit for a number of Uruguayan players who are near the end of their careers, but I wouldn't worry. There's plenty of promising youngsters in their team, and not a lot of people are gonna cry over Suarez not winning the World Cup. But who knows, with a little bit of luck, Facundo Pellistri might.