First round of FIFA World Cup delivers goods

The first round of matches at the 2022 FIFA World Cup has been decided, with teams getting a maiden taste of what football is like in the desert.

Richarlison! What have you done?! 🤯#FIFAWorldCup | @richarlison97 pic.twitter.com/kCKFdlINXq
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 24, 2022

While Qatar has delivered on some exciting football, they do have an unfortunate record to their name.

Qatar delivers the most 0-0 results in an opening round

There have been four games where teams failed to beat the goalkeeper. Denmark vs Tunisia, Mexico vs Poland, Morocco vs Croatia, and Uruguay vs South Korea all ended without a ball touching the back of the net.

That is the most goalless draws in the first round of a World Cup, in the tournament’s history.

Impenetrable Uruguay

Uruguay has an impressive record they’re defending during the group stages. Their 0-0 result against South Korea saw them extend the number of minutes gone without conceding a goal during the round-robin stage to 465 minutes.

The last player to score against Uruguay was Wayne Rooney, at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

Upsets galore at the 2022 FIFA World Cup

While Qatar has the unfortunate record for goalless draws in the first round, we have seen a couple of spectacular upsets.

Lionel Messi’s Argentina was the first country to be brought down to earth. Three points seemed to be assured, with thoughts around the result of the game being the number of goals scored. Unfortunately for the South Americans, they would be in for a massive shock, as the Saudi Arabia outfit had zero intentions of just being a number in the tournament.

The Saudis fought back from an early Messi penalty, to eventually claim a 2-1 win.

In the other historic 2-1 result, it was Japan who shocked the four-time World Cup winners, Germany. The match followed a similar script to the Saudi Arabia v Argentina match. Germany took an early lead, only for Japan to score two late goals in the second half for an unlikely haul of three points.

Japan sets example

Both players and supporters grabbed headlines for their conduct in and around the stadiums. Japan is famous for kindness and respect, and following the team’s historic win over Germany, the players made sure to leave their locker room in a better state than when they found it.

After an historic victory against Germany at the #FIFAWorldCup on Match Day 4, Japan fans cleaned up their rubbish in the stadium, whilst the @jfa_samuraiblue left their changing room at Khalifa International Stadium like this. Spotless.
Domo Arigato.👏🇯🇵 pic.twitter.com/NuAQ2xrwSI
— FIFA.com (@FIFAcom) November 23, 2022

The fans stuck around to clean the stands

Tidying up after one of their greatest #FIFAWorldCup wins 👏
Huge respect to these Japanese fans 🙌 #Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/RVwLwykPeq
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 24, 2022

Ghana gets Africa on the Board

Ghana was the first of the African nations to get on the scoreboard in the penultimate match of the first round. They fell to a heart-breaking 3-2 defeat in a game that served up the most exciting final 25 minutes of play, where all five of the match’s goals were scored.

Renaldo improves on goat status

The legend that is Cristiano Ronaldo reached another massive career milestone. The Portuguese striker opened the scoring in their first-round meeting with Ghana from the spot. With that goal, Renaldo became the first Men’s player to score a goal in five different editions of the FIFA World Cup.

His first goal came in 2006, also from the penalty spot, in a 2-0 win over Iran.

Out of this world 🇵🇹
🖐 Cristiano Ronaldo becomes the first man to score at five FIFA World Cups#FIFAWorldCup | @Cristiano pic.twitter.com/3UKqXLsZWd
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 24, 2022

While Renaldo’s arch-rival, Lionel Messi featured in as many FIFA World Cups, the Argentinian only scored in four editions. Messi failed at making it on the scoresheet in 2010.