World Cup 2022 news LIVE: Build-up to Morocco vs Spain in last 16 and early England team news

Japan have never made it past the last-16 at a World Cup. Failures at 2002 and 2010 still stung when 2018 became the most heartbreaking of all, Nacer Chadli’s latest of late goals seeing Belgium roar back from two down in the second half to beat them at the last.

The pain of that night in Rostov has lived with this Japanese group ever since. “I have never forgotten,” Yuto Nagatomo would say in the build-up to this latest attempt to write new history. He will remember this, too.

Instead it was the same old story, the fairytale this side has been on at this World Cup brutally ended in the most painful fashion possible by Croatia, a bitter final chapter the uplifting tale that came before it didn’t remotely deserve.

The Samurai Blue were beaten on penalties as Luka Modric and the 2018 runners-up advanced to the quarter-finals

Roger Milla is 70 now and, if that makes those who remember the 1994 World Cup feel old, it also helps illustrate how long African football has seemed to have been waiting for another breakthrough World Cup. Since 1990 when, with Milla a mere 38, Cameroon beat Argentina and reached the quarter-finals, there has been the sense a team from the continent could go further, or several could emerge as challengers.

In 2022, when Vincent Aboubakar secured Cameroon’s second greatest win on the global stage by overcoming Brazil, albeit a second-string Selecao, it ended a wretched record for the Indomitable Lions: their nine previous World Cup games had produced eight defeats and a chaotic draw. They seemed to have regressed and, when no African side reached the last 16 in Russia, so did the continent as a whole. Cameroon’s class of 1990 remains arguably Africa’s finest and most famous World Cup team. Senegal, in 2002, and Ghana, in 2010, also got to the last eight; but for Luis Suarez’s impromptu display of goalkeeping, the Black Stars would have been semi-finalists.

Morocco became the first African team to win a group for 24 years and there is a chance for a fourth quarter-finalist or even a maiden representative in the last four

One of the great cliches of international football requires updating. Never write off the Germans? It transpires there are times you can. But, long after they went out in the group stage in successive World Cups, a lesson of the 2018 and 2022 is to never write off the Croatians. They feel the hardest team to kill off. Denmark, Russia and England all led against Croatia in the knockout stages of the 2018 World Cup. They all ended up defeated. Japan followed suit in Qatar.

Croatia still have not won a World Cup knockout tie in 90 minutes since 1998. They nevertheless reached the final four years ago and are in the quarter-final now. They have a staying power that extends beyond Luka Modric’s extraordinary haul of 159 caps or his 16-year international career. If football is a 90-minute game, Croatia have the capacity to survive 120, the blend of skill and nerve to prevail on penalties after that.

Modric is the defining talent, his country’s greatest player. And yet their match-winners use their gloves, not their feet. Zlatko Dalic reflected on Dominik Livakovic’s hat-trick of penalty saves and cast his mind back to the last man to do likewise in a World Cup shootout. It is a curiosity of Croatian football that otherwise unexceptional goalkeepers can be specialists from 12 yards on the global stage.

The 2018 finalists triumphed once more beyond 90 minutes against Japan and will be undaunted ahead of quarter-final against Brazil

England’s World Cup 2022 players are running more than three kilometres more during games than their 1966 equivalents, and running more than twice as long at top speed, according to a study by STATSports that emphasises just how athletic the modern game has become.

The sports performance data company have been supplying the national team with technology including GPS training vests for over a decade, with Gareth Southgate leaning on them heavily for selection decisions.

STATSports undertook a study where their technology extensively analysed video footage of England’s 4-2 extra-time win over West Germany in the 1966 final.

It was found that Alan Ball had the highest total distance of any England player over the 120 minutes, with 8,550m covered. Phil Foden, one of his equivalents in the current team, by contrast covers an average of 10,620m per 90 minutes. The player who has the highest average total distance is Harry Kane, on 10,999m. Declan Rice however beat that by over a kilometre against Senegal, hitting 12,061m.

More here from Miguel Delaney on the data underpinning England’s efforts:

Like most international managers, Gareth Southgate places high physical demands on his players and relies on technology to help him track their efforts throughout the 2022 finals in Qatar

England beat Senegal 3-0 in their last-16 meeting on Sunday to set up a date with the reigning world champions at Al Bayt Stadium.

Keeping Mbappe quiet would go some way to helping Gareth Southgate’s men to victory on Saturday night, the Paris St Germain forward having already hit five goals in Qatar – including two in their 3-1 win over Poland which saw them advance to the last eight.

But, with the likes of Olivier Giroud – now France’s all-time record goalscorer – and Antoine Griezmann also expected to line up against England, Shaw insists there are plenty of other players to be concerned with.

The PSG forward has wowed in Qatar but Shaw knows France possess other world-class talents

The 2022 World Cup is in full swing as 32 nations began on 20 November aiming to lift the Jules Rimet trophy in Doha on 18 December.

Despite the many off-field issues around the tournament in Qatar, the group stage has thrown up plenty of thrills and spills, with Argentina losing to Saudi Arabia going down as one of the greatest shocks of any World Cup in history.

Japan also stunned Germany, before being eliminated on penalties, while Spain and England racked up goals in statement opening wins.

Here are the teams who have qualified for the quarter-finals and those who have gone home:

The teams still in the Qatar World Cup - and those going home

Morocco have rewritten both their history and African football’s at this World Cup, writes Karl Matchett. How much further can they go?

In a World Cup which has already seen several nations breaking their own records and setting new highs, Morocco joined in on Thursday to hit new heights in national team history.

Their final group stage game saw them triumph 2-1 over Canada to not just seal progression into the knockout stages in Qatar, but also finish top of the Group F quartet.

Nigeria, and the World Cup of France ‘98, was the last time an African nation managed to achieve that feat. A generation has passed since then, of players and of supporters and of heroes of the continent - and between that finals and these ones, Morocco had won precisely zero games at the World Cup.

It is all the more remarkable given the head coach took over just a few months ago, replacing Vahid Halilhodzic and taking his first match only two months before the finals began.

Hakim Ziyech and Youssef En-Nesyri scored to give the Atlas Lions a second win at a single World Cup for the first time ever

A wake-up call or a warning? Miguel Delaney takes a look at “the big question facing Spain at this World Cup”.

In the Spanish dressing room, there were no conciliatory gestures, no backslaps about getting through and getting back up. Luis Enrique was seething.

“I don’t have anything to celebrate,” the manager said. “I’m not one bit happy.”

Luis Enrique told the players as much. They have been given some harsh truths, as the manager now tries to reinvigorate this team so they have some chance of fulfilling the potential they have actually shown in this World Cup.

Luis Enrique suddenly has to find a lot of solutions. The grand question is whether he is fully aware of what the problems are.

He wasn’t aware of the biggest problem of all, which was that Spain were actually going out of the World Cup for a remarkable few minutes on Thursday night. Costa Rica were leading Germany in their game, and consequently leading Spain in the group, despite a goal difference of minus-five after that opening 7-0.

The big question facing Spain at the 2022 World Cup

Morocco have warned Spain they will “come out swinging” in a bid to pull off another huge World Cup upset.

The north African side created one of the biggest shocks in the group phase of the tournament in Qatar with their 2-0 victory over Belgium, having already held 2018 finalists Croatia to a goalless draw.

As they also beat Canada, this is the first time the Africans have won twice at a single World Cup - so there’s no fear of sitting back and being cowed by the 2010 world champions.

The north African side are hoping to cause another upset after beating Belgium in their second match

Spain boss Luis Enrique was bitterly disappointed with his team for losing against Japan in their final group stage game, a result which meant the 2010 champions finished as runners-up.

He’s expecting much better from his side - who haven’t actually won since the opener, when they hammered Costa Rica 7-0.

The 2010 winners threw away the lead and lost 2-1 Japan to finish second in Group E