As of Tuesday morning, 16 World Cup matches have been played, every one from Groups A to H and eight of them have ended in draws. Monday was a particularly unusual day in which all matches ended in draws: Spain 0-0 Cape Verde, Belgium 1-1 Egypt, Saudi Arabia 1-1 Uruguay, and Iran 2-2 New Zealand.
Before then, Canada and Bosnia and Herzegovina from Group B ended 1-1, Qatar and Switzerland from Group B ended 1-1, Brazil and Morocco from Group C ended 1-1, and Netherlands and Japan from Group F ended 2-2.
Those results add spice to the group stage, especially for Groups, B, G, and H, in which all nations are tied with 1 point, and are only provisionally ranked due to number of goals scored. One of the biggest shocks was Spain drawing 0-0 to Cape Verde, the big favourite failing to score against a debutant nation, with barely half a million people.
Uruguay helped them later when they equalised 1-1 to Saudi Arabia, so for all of them, the first matchday of the World Cup has been mostly useless, adding more pressure than ever to Games 2 and 3 and increasing importance of number of goals scored in case of a points draw.
The same happens in Group H with New Zealand, Iran, Belgium, and Egypt, one of the most open and unpredictable groups without a clear favourite.
World Cup matches on Tuesday, June 16 (and dawn of Wednesday):
- Group I: France vs. Senegal: Tuesday, June 16, 21:00 CEST, 20:00 BST
- Group I: Iraq vs. Norway: Wednesday, June 17, 00:00 CEST, 23:00 BST of Tuesday
- Group J: Argentina vs. Algeria: Wednesday, June 17, 03:00 CEST, 06:00 BST
- Group J: Austria vs. Jordan: Wednesday, June 17, 06:00 CEST, 05:00 BST
