Spain and Japan qualified for the round of 16 of the World Cup and Germany was eliminated Thursday in Doha after a night of madness.
Japan will face Croatia in 1/8 and Spain, Morocco.
Japan beat Spain 2-1, still saved, and Germany dominated in vain 4-2 Costa Rica, also eliminated, but the four teams were all successively qualified and eliminated over the course of the game. scores.
Japan even takes first place in the group.
An outcome that few would have imagined in the draw, when the duel between Spain and Germany was present as the summit of the group stages.
For a moment, when Costa Rica had briefly taken the advantage over Germany with a Manuel Neuer own goal (2-1), the unimaginable even seemed to be able to happen. For three minutes, until Havertz equalized (73), Spain and Germany were virtually eliminated.
The Germans eventually won 4-2, but it was a victory for honour.
They knew they no longer had their destiny in their hands for the price of their inaugural defeat against Japan (2-1).
And in fact, Japan, surprised by Costa Rica (1-0), did it again by taking the best of Spain thanks to goals after the break from Ritsu Doan (48) and Ao Tanaka (51) . Alvaro Morata opened the scoring for Spain (12).
This is the second time in a row that the Mannschaft, quadruple world champion, have come out of the group stages. A failure all the more bitter as it comes less than two years before the Euro in Germany.