CNN
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It was a day of massive upsets on the World Cup as Belgium and Japan each succumbed to shock defeats towards Morocco and Costa Rica respectively.
Morocco gained its first World Cup match since 1998 – and its third ever – securing a sensational 2-0 victory over heavyweight Belgium to make sure that it could possibly nonetheless qualify for the knockout stage for the second time in its historical past.
The Atlas Lions have been roared on by raucous assist contained in the stadium as they overcame a disallowed purpose on the stroke of halftime to attain two wonderful strikes within the second half.
First, Abdelhamid Sabiri curled in a perfectly-weighted free kick from the left-hand wing, bamboozling Thibaut Courtois, earlier than Zakaria Aboukhlal sealed his facet’s well-known win.
After an underwhelming efficiency in its opening 1-0 victory towards Canada, Belgium began extra fluently however nonetheless appeared a shadow of its typical self as Morocco regarded to construct by itself strong begin to the World Cup following a scoreless draw towards Croatia.
And it appeared as if Morocco had discovered the early breakthrough on the stroke of halftime, as Hakim Ziyech’s free kick rocketed previous Courtois, although it was later dominated out by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) for offside.
The 2 sides headed down the tunnel stage at 0-0, however this didn’t quell the assist of the hundreds of Moroccan followers whose chants rang across the stadium all recreation.
They usually erupted in celebration halfway by the second half when Sabiri’s free-kick discovered the again of the web, placing Morocco inside attain of the win.
Belgium provided little in response and Ziyech weaved by the Belgian protection in harm time, handed the ball again into the field the place Aboukhlal chipped it into the again of the web.
When the ultimate whistle blew minutes later, a number of Moroccan gamers fell to their knees – some bowed their heads in prayer, some merely collapsed in exhaustion – earlier than they embraced one another in celebration.
Morocco is now prime of Group F on 4 factors after beautiful the No. 2 ranked facet on this planet.
Earlier within the day, Costa Rica shocked Japan with a 1-0 win, because of an 81st minute purpose from Keysher Fuller, because it stored its hopes of qualifying for the World Cup knockout phases alive with an important three factors to tug stage with Spain and Japan in Group E.
Japan, recent from a shock victory over Germany that has given them an actual likelihood of reaching the knockout phases, couldn’t discover a foothold on this recreation regardless of Costa Rica nonetheless licking its wounds from a chastening 7-0 defeat towards Spain.
It was a cagey, underwhelming opening first 45 minutes marked by untidy passing from each side as neither might muster a single shot on the right track.
Straight after half-time, nevertheless, the tempo instantly lifted with the introduction of two new faces for Japan – Takuma Asano and Hiroki Ito.
Hidemasa Morita shimmied his technique to the penalty field and lined up a shot on purpose that was batted away by Keylor Navas.
Japan continued to press however couldn’t capitalize and the sport quickly settled again into the tepid rhythm of the primary half.
Then, towards the run of play, Costa Rica capitalized on a mistake on the sting of the field and Fuller rifled the ball into the highest nook of the web, previous the outstretched hand of Shuichi Gonda, for his facet’s first shot on the right track and first purpose of the match.
It silenced the Samurai Blue followers for the primary time, whose present of singing and drums had swept across the stadium for a lot of the sport, and buoyed the Costa Rican assist as their very own chants of “Oe Oe Ticos!” grew louder.
With simply 9 minutes of normal time remaining, Japan noticed its hopes of sealing a spot within the knockout phases slip away, and an opportunity late on with the ball ricocheting across the field was marshalled by Navas as Costa Rica held on for the win.
With Spain and Germany enjoying afterward Sunday, each groups’ fates might be determined within the final spherical of fixtures.
Croatia averted becoming a member of the checklist of defeated favorites on Sunday, beating Canada 4-1 to report its first win in Qatar.
The 2018 World Cup finalist needed to come from a purpose behind after Alphonso Davies scored in 68 seconds – the quickest purpose on the match up to now – to offer Canada the lead, however Croatia hit again with objectives from Andrej Kramaric and Marko Livaja earlier than half-time.
Kramaric acquired his second purpose of the sport 20 minutes from time and Lovro Majer added the fourth in harm time to safe Croatia’s win as Canada exits the World Cup with two defeats in two matches.