Morocco and Portugal are in Quarter-Finals

It’s the last day for the second round games with Morocco who were winners of Group F playing SPAIN runners up in Group E with 8 votes. There is not much to report on the first half as both side missed chances of taking the lead. Evenly match, the score at half time was 0-0 and all to play for in the second half. The second half and you must give Morocco some credit for keeping Spain at bay. You had that feeling that after an hour play, that this game was going into extra time and even penalties. The game did liven up in the last ten minutes and the added injury time but extra time was needed. Watching the extra time was like watching a different game. Both teams were eager to win as both had great chances for scoring.  But we finished with our first goalless game in this season round. In the penalty shootout I have never seen such bad penalties being taken. What a shocker but Spain go out as Morocco win 3-0 on penalties and, for the first time in their history, they are through to the quarter-finals. Spain had only won one of their games in the first round which is the tournaments biggest score to date when they beat Costa Rica 7-0 in their opening game. Spain go home with a total of 9 goals. They are in their 9^th World Cup with us and their best total in the World Cup is 10 goals. They have done that twice in USA 1994 and in South Africa 2002. They went out in the Russian 2018 World Cup also in the second round with 7 goals. 

In the other game of the day PORTUGAL winners of Group H with 12 votes had to play SWITZERLAND runners up in Group G with just 1 vote. This was a very different game as both side raced from end to end with Portugal having more shots on target than Switzerland. So it is no surprise that Portugal scored first in the 17^th minute from Goncalo Ramos his first of the tournament. Portugal went 2-0 up after Pepe scored in the 33^rd minute. Switzerland did counter attacked straight after the Portugal’s goal but it was cleared off the line. Half time score is 2-0 to Portugal. The second half was more of the same as Portugal scored in the 51^st, 55^th through Ramos to get his hat-trick and Guerreiro in the 67^th minutes. Even one of their subs scored in the Leao in the 90+2 minutes. Switzerland did score a goal in the 58^th minute by Akanji. A great game as Portugal picked up their biggest score of the tournament, by winning 6-1. They have doubled their goals tally to 12. Switzerland have finished with a total of 5 goals. 

After the second round games have now all been played and we have just 7 nations left in the World Cup. We have now taken our goals total to 110. At this stage in Russia 2018 we had a total of 96 goals from 18 teams.