World Cup 2018: Five players who have failed to live up to expectations
With every passing day, this World Cup gets better. We haven’t even had three weeks of the tournament, but Germany, Spain and Argentina are already out, and we have seen some quite superb games.
The group stage got off to a slow start, and there were worries that VAR would have a negative effect on the game. But the football soon took over, and up to this point, we have seen one of the best World Cups in history.
Cristiano Ronaldo got things going with a sensational hat-trick against Spain as the pair played out a thrilling 3-3 draw. Germany were the shock casualties of the group stage, with the holders suffering a shock exit after defeats to Mexico and South Korea. That meant that for the third tournament in a row, we had seen the back of the world champions by the end of the group stage.
Argentina snuck through from the groups, meaning that apart from Germany, all the usual suspects had made it through to the knock out rounds. But things really got going in the round of 16.
Kylian Mbappe starred for France as they beat Argentina, while Edinson Cavani scored twice as Uruguay knocked out Portugal. Spain were the next to suffer a shock elimination, after being knocked out by hosts Russia on penalties.
Belgium and Japan produced another thrilling game, as Belgium came from two goals down to beat Japan with a brilliant comeback, Nacer Chadli netting a winner with almost the last kick of the game.
We have seen some outstanding individual performances as well, but there have been a number of players who haven’t reached the level that was expected of them.
#1 Mesut Ozil (Germany)
There has regularly been debate over whether Ozil is capable of performing in the big games, and whether his work ethic is good enough for a top team. There has been no need for debate over this in Russia though, he simply hasn’t been good enough. He will have been expected to be a major part of this Germany side, especially given some of the younger players around him. He was playing in his third World Cup, and he will have been tasked with leading the way for the younger players.
He had a shocking tournament though. He had little to no impact against Mexico, and was rightly left out of the side that beat Sweden. It was a surprise to see him come back into the side for the final match against South Korea, because very few expected to see Joachim Low change a winning team. It was proved the wrong decision, with Ozil yet again failing to make his mark. It wouldn’t be a surprise if this was his last major tournament, because he was nowhere near good enough at this one.