{"id":525639,"date":"2026-06-30T10:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525639\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T10:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:36:12","slug":"world-cup-2026-time-to-write-off-germany-who-have-become-an-international-spurs-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525639\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Time to write off Germany, who have become an international Spurs \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nothing beats the World Cup<\/a>. More accurately, nothing beats the World Cup when everything is on the line and suddenly it\u2019s loser-goes-home time. We are four games into the knock-out phase and already we\u2019ve had two games decided by injury-time goals and two more that went all the way to penalties. Last night saw the end of the road for Japan<\/a>, for Germany<\/a> and for the Netherlands<\/a>. Insane drama at every turn.<\/p>\n

Japan went down to Brazil<\/a> in the end, despite taking a first-half lead. Kaishu Sano\u2019s stunning opener put them in a great position but they retreated further and further into their own half as the game went on and their caution told eventually. Goals from Casemiro and Martinelli did for them and might just be the spark that gets Brazil up and running. Jonathan Wilson\u2019s report is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Boston, Ken Early saw Germany\u2019s World Cup come to a crashing end<\/a>, with Paraguay inflicting a first defeat in a World Cup penalty shoot-out. Germany were sluggish in the first half, a little less so in the second and thought they had the winner in extra-time, only for VAR to nix what looked like a reasonably fair goal on account of a feather touch on the goalkeeper at a corner. But their penalties were comically bad and Paraguay edged through to the last 16.<\/p>\n

And in Monterrey, Morocco sent the Dutch packing after an epic night in which they summoned an injury-time equaliser and came through a slow bicycle race of a shoot-out in which half the penalties were missed between the two sides. A brilliant game ended 1-1, with Cody Gakpo scoring an emotional goal for the Netherlands and Issa Diop nodding home the equaliser when all looked lost.<\/p>\n

One of the great, great World Cup nights. <\/p>\n

Results: <\/p>\n

Round of 32 \u2013 Brazil 2 (Casemiro 56\u2032, Martinelli 90+6\u2032) Japan 1 (Sano 29\u2032)<\/p>\n

Round of 32 \u2013 Germany 1 (Havertz 54\u2032) Paraguay 1 (Enciso 42\u2032)<\/p>\n

(Paraguay won 4-3 on penalties)<\/p>\n

Round of 32 \u2013 Netherlands 1 (Gakpo 73\u2032) Morocco 1 (Diop 90+1\u2032)<\/p>\n

(Morocco won 3-2 on penalties)<\/p>\n

Goal of the day: Even in isolation, Cody Gakpo\u2019s opener<\/a> for the Netherlands was a brilliant exercise in directness \u2013 long ball from goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, flick-on from Wout Weghorst, miracle pass while falling over from Crysencio Summerville and an emphatic finish from Gakpo. But the scenes afterwards said everything, as Gakpo\u2019s team-mates surrounded him to allow a private moment in the week he and his partner lost a child to a miscarriage.<\/p>\n

Moment of the day: No competition here \u2013 the moment Paraguay lost its collective marbles as the final penalty went in. Where else in the world would you have wanted to be just then but in downtown Asunci\u00f3n? Freelance journalist Santi Carneri Tamaryn captured it. His caption? \u201cAsunci\u00f3n is collapsing!!! What an awesome match!!! Let\u2019s go Paraguay!!!\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

Picture of the day: It\u2019s 4am in Tokyo. You\u2019ve stayed up all night to watch your team play Brazil in the World Cup and lose to a desperate injury-time goal. The local cops tell you it\u2019s time to go home but you can\u2019t hear a word they\u2019re saying because your head is filled with two specific thoughts. One, \u201cGoddammit, my team are out and I have to be up for work in three hours.\u201d And two, \u201cI sure hope that photographer hasn\u2019t noticed this giant inflatable prawn I\u2019ve got on my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JapaneseJapanese fans in Tokyo react after watching their team’s World Cup loss to Brazil. Photograph: Philip FONG\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Question of the day: Germany\u2019s perfect four-from-four record in World Cup penalty shoot-outs went last night. They shared that record with which other country?<\/p>\n

Coming up today: <\/p>\n

Round of 32 \u2013 Ivory Coast v Norway (6pm Irish time, RT\u00c92 & UTV)<\/p>\n

Round of 32 \u2013 France v Sweden (10pm, RT\u00c92 & UTV)<\/p>\n

Round of 32 \u2013 Mexico v Ecuador (2am, RT\u00c92 & UTV)<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in sport: Plenty of non-World Cup football news in The Irish Times today, with Gavin Cooney reporting that Irish MEPs are among 50 European politicians<\/a> who have submitted a letter to Fifa calling for it to investigate Gianni Infantino over the awarding of a Peace Prize to US president Donald Trump. Gavin also has a story about moves within Clones Town FC to remove \u201cJohn Delaney Park\u201d<\/a> as the official name of its club grounds.<\/p>\n

In rugby, Gerry Thornley\u2019s column<\/a> is on the change to the laws around the maul and how it\u2019s going to be good news for South Africa, whatever about anybody else. And in GAA, Stephen Rochford breaks down the numerous debatable refereeing decisions <\/a>that were so prominent in the All-Ireland football quarter-finals over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Answer to question: Croatia. They\u2019ve been in shoot-outs against Russia and Denmark (both 2018) and against Japan and Brazil (both 2022). Four shoot-outs, four victories, 23 penalties taken, 19 penalties scored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nothing beats the World Cup. More accurately, nothing beats the World Cup when everything is on the line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[223827,42,223170,43,223828,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-525639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-brazil-v-japan","tag-headlines","tag-netherlands-v-morocco","tag-news","tag-paraguay-v-germany","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}