After 72 games, the biggest group stage in World Cup history is finally complete, and we even have the first knockout game under our belts after Stephen Eustaquio’s stoppage-time winner sent Canada into the last 16, eliminating South Africa on Sunday.
We’re not quite ready to move on, though. We rather enjoyed the enormous group stage, and so we’re going to reminisce a bit longer.
In today’s SVQ, we’re looking at two ends of the spectrum. A player who managed to provide two goal involvements from the fewest touches at a men’s World Cup on record, and another who scored at the end of the longest sequence of passes to lead to a goal in the competition’s recorded history.
We also have a Missing Players quiz from the 2006 semi-finals, and an Ask Opta question about early goals at the 2026 World Cup.
🔥 STAT - Lukaku’s Unbelievably Efficient Cameo
When Romelu Lukaku was brought on for Belgium in the 85th minute of their final group game at the weekend, they had just conceded.
New Zealand’s goal pulled the score back to 3-1, which dropped Belgium to second in Group G. That would have meant a possible last-16 clash with defending champions Argentina. The instruction to the Napoli striker from Rudi Garcia was presumably therefore to get them a late goal to top the group.
Lukaku did just that and more, and boy was he efficient about it.
First, just seconds after coming on, he headed in Nicolas Raskin’s cross from the right to make it 4-1.
That goal meant Lukaku surpassed Marc Wilmots (5) as Belgium’s top scorer ever at World Cups, while he also became the second player to score in three different World Cups for the Red Devils (2014, 2018, 2026) – after Kevin De Bruyne, who achieved the feat in the same game (2014, 2018, 2026).
Then, in stoppage time, he set up Alexis Saelemaekers to make it five.
In his short time on the pitch, Lukaku had managed a goal and an assist. But it wasn’t just the short time he had done it in, but how little he was otherwise involved.
