Qatar 2022: The story continues
Olorunfemi Praise
The concluding unfolding events of the Qatar World Cup 2022, have been intriguing, and exhilarating on one end while being teary on another end. Like one precept upon another, and a strand of thread upon another, forming yards of fabric, so also one event has followed another, and in a matter of few days, the Qatar World Cup 2022, will become a historical reference forever, in the history of both football, and mankind.
So far so good, with a total of 108 matches that have been played in the course of the Qatar World Cup 2022, 96 matches played by 32 teams at the group stages, 8 matches by 16 teams at the round of 16 stages, 4 matches played by 8 teams at the quarter-final stages, the tournament has gravitated to the semifinals stage. The teams to battle their way out of the semi-final stages include Argentina, Croatia, France, and Morocco.
As earlier hinted, indeed eventful events have unfolded themselves in the course of the ongoing Qatar World Cup 2022. Some of these events include the red card of the Cameroonian striker, Vincent Aboubakar, who was sanctioned with a red card after the referee gave him a handshake first, and a friendly pat on the back of his head for pulling off his jersey in jubilation, after a goal he scored during their match against Brazil, that took place on a Friday, the second day of December. The competition also saw another historic win during the match between Saudi Arabia and Argentina, with the former winning the match, hence spoiling the winning streak record of the latter, despite the fact that that particular match saw a lot of goals, although not counted. The competition also witnessed what could be seen as, how are the mighty fallen, as teams like Spain fell at the feet of the Moroccan team, a penalty shoot-out with Morocco having three goals more than Spain, the Japanese team beating the Spaniard 2 to 1 goal, Costa Rica beating Japan, and Japan handling the German Machines, like they were one of their electronics. The list would go on and on, on the surprising turn of events. Who would have predicted that countries like Belgium and Germany would not make it out of the group stages?
Africa’s Performance At the Qatar World Cup 2022: Commendable?
The match between Morocco and Portugal could be seen as an iconic win in this current world cup, and probably the history of the FIFA World Cup generally. It was unexpected and unpredictable. In fact, there is a Nigerian memes that went viral, with a picture of a “comrade” pointing to a choiced piece of goat meat in a large “mama put” pot, showing the other “comrade” who was serving, reads thus, “yes ‘goat’ meat, that ‘goat’ meat wey Morocco just kill yesterday, put am with plenty ‘ororo’”. Anyone conversant with football will understand the height of the sarcasm. Even the match against Belgium is also something notable, with the likes of Inter Milan, AC Milan, and Real Madrid’s attackers, Romelu Lukaku, Charles De Ketelaere, and Eden Hazard, respectively, Atletico Madrid, Leicester City, and Manchester City’s midfielders, Axel Witsel, Youri Tielemans, and Kevin De Bruyne, and some other notable players on the Belgian team, Morocco was still able to beat the Belgian team hands down, with two goals to nothing. In fact, the only goal against the Moroccan team, so far in this competition, was their own goal during their match against Canada, of which they were able to read just the situation and still won the match with a 2-1 score. In fact, they came out of the group stages with an unbeaten record: zero goal againt from any opponent, even with the presence of the 5 times Ballon d’Or winner, Cristiano Ronaldo, and his entourage, at the knock-out stages. This record remains undisturbed.
Another iconic win was in the match between Tunisia and France, although Tunisia never made it out of the group stage, France not being able to defeat Tunisia, with the presence of players like Giroud and Mbappé amongst others, could mean a lot. Not even a goal from France in a match against Tunisia that lasted for 90 minutes. Despite France having more time in possession of the ball, they could not convert all this into a goal against the African Carthage Eagles.
Although narrowly missing the train out of the group stages to the round of 16 stages, Cameroon also had an Iconic win against the 5 times world cup winner, Brazil. The only goal in the match was from the Cameroonian striker, Vincent Aboubakar, despite the likes of the presence of Neymar Jr.
So, out of the group stages, two African teams made it to the knockout stages; Senegal, who was defeated by England 3 nil and Morocco who has so far knocked the ‘goats’ out of the tournament to reach the semi finals.
Before the Qatar world cup 2022, the farthest any African team had ever gone in the FIFA World Cup was the quarter-final, and that was Ghana, in 2010. The Uruguayan striker, Luis Suárez, literally stopped with his hands, what would have been the winning goal for Ghana, although Suarez was given a red card on the spot, the havoc had been done, and the match went into a penalty shoot-out, which ended up in a loss of the game to the Ghanian team, nevertheless, Suarez was deified in his home country for stopping a whole continent from entering the semifinals.
Given these observations, it can be said that, with more deliberate preparations and determination, the African continent might join the train of the FIFA World Cup lifters in FIFA’s hall of fame.
Some facts, figures and records
As events unfold, more records are being made while some are broken. In addition, the top five players with the most goals are ranked below.

Battle For the finals
In the draws for the semifinal, Croatia was pitched against Argentina and France was to face Morocco. Argentina won the first semi final yesterday by 3 goal to nil to enter the final for the second time in 3 tournaments. 7 times Ballon d’Or winner, Lionel Messi, opened the goals gate with his penalty at 34 minutes, while Julian Alvarez scored 2 more at 39 minutes and 69 minutes.
Morocco’s game against the French team, scheduled to be held on the 14th of December by 20:00 at Al Bayt Stadium. It remains to be seen if the Moroccan team will be able be able to pull this off against the formidable-looking French team and we will have an African team in the world cup final for the first time.
What will also be the fate of Argentina? Will the 7 times Ballon d’Or winner, add the FIFA World Cup trophy to his collections? By the dusk of the 18th of December, these questions would have been answered. Until then, stay tuned to AFAS Press Sports desk, as we bring you updates on the Qatar World Cup, 2022.