Well boy, what a day of World Cup that was yesterday. Brazil squeaking by Japan with the latest normal-time winner in the knockout stages that we have records for, going back to 1966, and that may have been the quiet game of the round. Germany are out, shocking enough and then you see that Die Mannschaft lost on penalties. The Netherlands too.
The bar has been set very high indeed for Ivory Coast vs. Norway, which kicks off Tuesday's games. Then it is France's clash with Sweden before a night cap of Mexico taking on Ecuador. The latter represents a major test for one of the tournament's hosts, who might not have been sufficiently tested in a rather favorable Group A. Meanwhile, the likes of Ecuador, Ivory Coast and Sweden can all count themselves battle-hardened after coming through tough groups, do any of them have what it takes to follow in the footsteps of Morocco and Paraguay?
Can Golden Boot contenders catch Messi?
It has been a remarkably competitive race for the Golden Boot so far at the tournament. A star-studded one too. The two best forwards on Real Madrid, the top scorer in the Premier League and the reigning Ballon d'Or holder, that makes for quite a quartet that lie two goals behind Lionel Messi. There seems something appropriate about that grouping. At some stage Ousmane Dembele, Vinicius Junior and, in particular, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland have all been positioned as the one to succeed the great man as the best player on the planet. It would appear that that is a title that Messi is not quite prepared to give up yet.
Hence why he got half an hour in a dead rubber against Jordan, enough time to buttress his tally to six and potentially take an unassailable lead in his pursuit of one of the few individual honors he has never won. Perhaps it is the threat of Mbappe eventually overhauling him as the World Cup's greatest ever scorer, but Messi's minute load suggests a forward who is at least partially motivated by that scoring crown.
If the field are going to catch him, this might be their day to do so. Looking at a potential path for Norway if they were to get to the latter stages, there do not seem to be many goals for Haaland. The Ivory Coast are a strong defense, after that, it would be another run in with his arch-nemesis, Arsenal and Brazil defender Gabriel Magalhaes, and then England, a potential quarterfinal opponent that will not give Norway much of the ball to work with. Stale Solbakken's side have learned how to feed Haaland without having too much of the ball -- against Senegal they had just 42% possession -- and their aggression at getting him good shots means the Manchester City man is averaging a ludicrous 0.25 xG per shot.
CBS Sports Meanwhile, Mbappe should fancy his chances against a defense that looks like it too has concluded that Sweden's best chance of advancing is Viktor Gyokeres and Alexander Isak going supernova. The ever-so-slight worry for Mbappe -- but certainly not France as a whole -- is that Didier Deschamps has so many match winners that this might just end up being a day for Dembele or a Michael Olise game. Heck, the guys buried at the bottom of the depth chart like Marcus Thuram, one minute played at the tournament so far, are all good enough to swing a major match their way.
France just don't need to rely on Mbappe or Dembele like Argentina do Messi. Haaland might be the only attacker to match the latter for importance, but Norway just don't have the verdant and lush path to the semifinals like Argentina do. It would appear that Messi has one hand on the Golden Boot. Today might be the best chance for some of the contenders to snatch it back.
Can Mexico live up to their record?
It seems almost churlish to crow about Mexico's record in the group stage when it is significantly better than could have been expected, even when accounting for a favorable draw. Six scored, none conceded, nine points from nine: lovely stuff. The results, though, feel markedly better than what were good performances against limited opposition. That is reflected in the data too. That goal difference of six compares very nicely with an xG difference of 2.22; only France and the now-eliminated Netherlands have outperformed their xG difference by more.
Much of this penalty box success comes in attack, where six goals have come from shots worth 3.73 xG, and that has been bolstered in a quite intriguing way. Often when you're dealing with such a small sample size, you might expect it to be warped by a couple of screamers. That is not really the case for El Tri, who have had six shots worth over 0.2 xG and scored five of them. It is not particularly normal that every good look ends in the back of the net, it is not a particularly sustainable approach to ride some sort of collective finishing streak across four games in three weeks. Take another six 0.2 xG shots and you might only score one or two goals next time around.
CBS Sports All of which is to say nothing for the fact that Ecuador are as billed when it comes to their defense. Against what was a strong group, La Tri (these nicknames are going to be confusing for whoever is on match report duties tonight) allowed only 36 shots, few of which were the sort of ≥0.2 xG shots that have brought Mexico their goals. Ecuador's 'problem' in the last three games was that their attack didn't have the juice to get them three points until the dying minutes against Germany. Knockout football tends to skew towards the defensive teams; this threatens to be the day when Mexico's hot hand gets put on ice.
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