Argentina 2, Poland 0
Argentina finally looked like Argentina here, their 166 fields gained are the most by any team in the tournament so far and the field being tilted more than any other game, even more than Costa Rica-Spain.
Poland essentially did not compete in this game. No one has had a higher share of long possessions (touches 6 seconds or more into a possession) than Argentina did and no one was more efficient moving the ball than Argentina.
Lewandowski’s embarrassed smirk after they advanced summed it up: Poland have zero business advancing after an awful group stage where they were outshot 50-19, outprogressed 366-132 in fields gained and out-deepcompleted 44-18, but they made it
I hope they get just a disgusting 0-0 win on penalties over France.
De Paul, di Maria and Messi were free to just generate whatever they wanted.
Australia 1, Denmark 0
Australia again conceded the field (28% of progression, 27% of danger zone completions) but Denmark was not able to convert lots of dangerous possession into goal threat. They generated just 0.65 xG from all this. Their bigger problem over the group was how soft their defense was, allowing a higher rate of deep completions per fields gained and also shots allowed per deep completion allowed than all but Saudi Arabia. The control of their own box was putrid and Denmark did not deserve to advance, even from this bad group.
Mexico 2, Saudi Arabia 1
This was a testament to the 4-team, 2-advance group that somehow might be abandoned for an absurd idea of 3-team groups with penalties taken before a match for an extra point. Both needed to win and it led to a wide-open game where the ball was around the box and going on goal a ton. Drama throughout but Mexico really had a chance in all 3 games to get more than they did: the conservatism vs Argentina was questionable but dominating Poland and being unable to generate enough for a goal probably will burn the most.
Salem Al Dawsari was legitimately great this tournament and so was Luis Chavez for Mexico.
England 3, Wales 0
Foden and Rashford made strong, but not foolproof cases, to start going forward. The progression they had was just ok, but they shone in producing in front of goal. With England, and Kane in particular, struggling there a bit vs the USA, this should be enough to get both into the lineup.
Senegal 2, Ecuador 1
Youssouf Sabaly continued his great production as one of the breakout stars for me of the tournament.
I also love when a top-class CB becomes a key attacking point for his national team, somehow seems to happen a bit more than you think. They have to remain at CB though, David Alaba playing rover for Austria remains one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in international play.
Ecuador have played the 3 games with the least total ball progression in the tournament so far. That is certainly an ethos. They also played 3 of the 6 games so far with the fewest deep completions (CRC-JAP, MEX-ARG, MAR-CRO the other 3). The glory is in the defensive struggle with Ecuador and the entire pitch became a battlefield.