Netherlands 5 - 1 Sweden

Germany 2 - 1 Ivory Coast

Ecuador 0 - 0 Curacao

Tunisia 0 - 4 Japan

Tunisia faced a drubbing at the hands of Japan to exit the competition. Elsewhere, Netherlands dismantled Sweden 5-1, Curacao earned their first ever World Cup point and Germany narrowly bested Ivory Coast. 

The day’s highlights:

• Netherlands beat Sweden by five goals to one, despite some signs of life from the Scandinavians. Two early goals did the initial damage to Potter’s men, but this was the Dutch at their fluid best. 

  
  

• Germany played out an intriguing game with Ivory Coast that in honesty the African nation was unlucky to lose, having been on top for large spells of the game and impressing hugely against an uninspired Germany side.

  
  

• Ecuador and Curacao played out a game that will be remembered primarily for the heroics of Curacao’s goallkeeper Eloy Room, who made more stops than any other player in recorded World Cup history to earn Curacao a point for the first time in their history.

  
  

• Tunisia exited the competition after two games with a dismal record of two played, 1 scored, 9 conceded, in line with our predictions that they would struggle in this group.

  
  

How were the games? What did we learn?

All in all, we saw some great games. Shockingly, it turns out sacking your manager mid-tournament does not have a positive effect on results, as we suspected might be the case. The Netherlands and Japan impressed hugely. Curacao’s goalkeeper Room pulled off the performance of the tournament, and indeed ANY tournament as far as goalkeeping stats go.

***

Netherlands v Sweden

It was looking like it might be a rout for Sweden as the Dutch game out all guns blazing in this one, leaving Sweden gasping for air in the early stages. Extremely impressive goals from Brian Brobbey (‘5, ‘17) were followed by fatal follow ups by Cody Gakpo (‘47, ‘54) and Crysensio Summerville (‘89) as the Dutch turned up the heat and Sweden seemed unable to resist against elite opposition. 

The Dutch gameplan seemed to be attack, attack, attack, with the idea of reducing the amount of time the threats of Isak and Gyokores could have on the ball, and exposing the weaknesses of the Swedish backline. 

Against such a positive playstyle, Sweden themselves tried to play football, but came undone through a mixture of individual errors and being overwhelmed in wide areas. Netherlands mixed up the nature of their attacks, going long, out wide and vertically on the transition at various stages of the game, and with their quality in execution completely put Sweden to the sword. 

Sweden looked like they might have a glimmer of hope as they were never truly down-and-out, getting a goal back from Anthony Elanga off the bench to breakaway and hit a clinical finish from range, but the damage had already been done and Netherlands closed out the game in style with a fantastic final goal by Summerville. 

Would the game have gone differently if Sweden had dug in early and avoided the first two goals? Probably, but it’s hard to look past the attacking threat of the Netherlands in any case, who showed their credentials as one of the best sides on display so far at the tournament. 

***

Germany v Ivory Coast

“Gritty” is probably the best word to describe this performance from Germany, who somehow managed to grind out a 2-1 win over an impressive Ivory Coast side. 

Falling behind in the 30th minute thanks to a combination of Diamande’s powerful low cross into the box and Franck Kessié’s finish, it looked like Ivory Coast would have enough fuel in the tank to see out the game, but the introduction of Deniz Undav changed things for Germany. 

In what we can only describe as a typical “backup striker comes good” Germany performance from Undav, he found himself free to volley home a shot in the 68th minute and delivered a sickener of harrowing proportions to Ivory Coast in the 94th minute with a tidy finish. 

Both sides looked good on the break, but more notably their defences both looked solid as this one looked to be nullifying itself following Ivory Coast’s early goal. 

Ivory Coast repeatedly used their key asset of devastating speed to try to unlock Germany, but the Germans remained unmoved, themselves trying to play a more methodical, slow game and take the Ivorians out of their high-tempo comfort zone.

In the end it worked as two individual errors from Ivory Coast allowed the “slow and steady wins the race” mentality to prevail from Germany and left Ivory Coast missing a deserved point. 

They still have a good chance of progressing, having won their first game and with Ecuador and Curacao locked in a 0-0 draw later in the day.

***
Ecuador v Curacao

Is there such a thing as a “pulsating” 0-0 draw? If there is, this was a candidate for such a tag, with Ecuador looking to bring the game to Curacao only to find themselves repeatedly shut out by the imperious goalkeeper Eloy Room, who put in a performance of a quality that cannot be overstated. In fact, it’s never been matched. 

It started as it meant to go on, with Ecuador through on goal 1 on 1 with Room, only to find themselves denied. 

The stats for Ecuador say it all: they had nearly 30 attempts and hit the woodwork three times, but a combination of fortune, profligacy and the exceptional goalkeeping ability of Room saw them unable to penetrate the Caribbean side’s defence to see Curacao take their very first World Cup point.

A lionhearted performance from Curacao, and Ecuador will be sweating over their own last 32 hopes as a result.

***

Tunisia v Japan

What an abysmal tournament for Tunisia, and while fingers will be pointed by the Federation at Sabri Lamouchi, we’ve seen the impact of the shambolic reactive decision-making of the upper echelons play out in horrifying slow motion here at this tournament on the biggest stage of all. 

Going back to the 2025 AFCON, Tunisia’s unlucky R16 exit was the catalyst for a series of messy decisions playing out very publicly, starting with sacking their manager and denying him a return on the team bus, through to the early dismissal of Sabri Lamouchi this time around. 

While the early result that cost Lamouchi his job was undoubtedly a huge factor in their tournament performance, this performance is further evidence that the problems run deeper for Tunisia than the manager in charge at any given moment, and the reckless decision making is contributing to an unstable environment that makes it difficult to succeed in.

But take nothing away from Japan in this game, who produced a dominant performance to dismantle Tunisia right from the get-go, with goals from Daichi Kamada in the 4th minute followed by an Ueda double and a capstone goal from Junya Ito to put the final nail in Tunisia’s coffin. 

Japan looked at their attacking best in this, the 1000th World Cup match ever played, and while it’s hard to read quite how much of Tunisia’s failings were self-inflicted, this was nevertheless another indication of how strong Japan are looking as we inch towards the knockout stages. 

Our prediction for how this group will shake out is still holding water, with a straight shootout likely between Netherlands and Japan for top spot, Sweden to pick up third and Tunisia down and most certainly out in 4th.

***

More sides out of the competition, then, and further sides to potentially follow on Day 11. Who will impress and who will falter? 

Bring it on!