Anka:<\/strong> Olise is the spice that makes France\u2019s sauce so delicious. If you are someone who believes football has grown too robotic and the game hates creativity, watch Olise for 10 minutes.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2283806855-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Olise has played like no one else at this World Cup (Photo: Nicol\u00f2 Campo\/LightRocket via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Hughes:<\/strong>\u00a0Kane. Some of the platitudes coming his way have been over the top but there\u2019s no doubt England\u2019s players would be on their holidays right now if it wasn\u2019t for him.<\/p>\nWeese:<\/strong>\u00a0Mbappe. I\u2019m jealous of my colleagues who get to watch him in real life at the stadiums. He is just a magician with the ball.<\/p>\nSlater:<\/strong> I am going to take a leaf out of Thierry Henry\u2019s book and fudge it. Kane was the Most Valuable Player of the round; Olise has been the Most Important Player of the tournament. Can you imagine if they were on the same team?!?<\/p>\nMiller:<\/strong> Olise. However, if we\u2019re measuring this by performance against expectation, Leao \u2014 maybe the most frustrating footballer in the world, half the time \u2014 was sensational for Portugal against Croatia.<\/p>\nIversen:<\/strong> You want moments and memories from the World Cup, and Kane\u2019s rescue mission against DR Congo is the kind of moment that makes legends \u2014 and perhaps sparks a run?<\/p>\nBushnell:<\/strong> Kane. I had no rooting interest, and he\u2019s the one player who made me exclaim.<\/p>\nThe goal of the round of 32 was\u2026<\/p>\n
James:<\/strong> Sidny Lopes Cabral. I\u2019m not going to lie, Sidny, I wasn\u2019t familiar with your game. What. A. Goal. That goes straight in at No 1. A truly remarkable strike.<\/p>\nKay:<\/strong> I\u2019ve got several in mind and they all seem to involve a player dribbling in from the touchline and finding the far corner. They\u2019re such satisfying goals, aren\u2019t they? I\u2019ll go for Mbappe\u2019s first for France against Sweden, just ahead of Antonio Nusa and Amad Diallo.<\/p>\nHay:<\/strong>\u00a0Kane\u2019s second against DR Congo. Boom. I really liked Quinones for Mexico against Ecuador too.<\/p>\nWilliamson:<\/strong> Stephen Eustaquio\u2019s stoppage-time strike for Canada deserves a mention but it has to be Kane\u2019s second to beat DR Congo. The way he found half a yard, turned and struck that ball into the net was quite something.<\/p>\nSpiers:<\/strong> Ismaila Sarr\u2019s goal for Senegal against Belgium was a beauty. Long ball over the top, chest, strength, volley, boom. His fourth goal of an impressive tournament, but sadly for him and Senegal also his last.<\/p>\nCorrigan:<\/strong> Tough call this \u2014 but there was something tremendously visceral about Quinones\u2019 stunner for Mexico, as if he was surfing a wave of energy and emotion coming from the whole stadium (or the whole country).<\/p>\nAnka:<\/strong> Amad running at the Norwegian defence with the patience and precision of a paring knife before carving out an inch of space inside the six-yard box, before thumping a left-footed shot past Orjan Nyland. Might the Ivory Coast have won that match had Amad started?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2284175120-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Amad scores one of the goals of the round. (Chris Brunskill\/Fantasista\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Hughes:<\/strong> I agree with Carl: Amad. Can\u2019t understand why he didn\u2019t start.<\/p>\nWeese:<\/strong> Eustaquio for Canada in stoppage time against South Africa. The sequence was brilliant \u2026 Jacob Shaffelburg\u2019s cross into the box, followed by South Africa\u2019s poor clearance on the header. For Eustaquio to show patience as the ball went down before delivering a perfectly executed low strike to the corner was a touch of class, giving Canada its first knockout-stage win.<\/p>\nSlater:<\/strong> Nusa, Amad, Sarr \u2026 there were some absolute beauties in this round. But come on, for sheer magnitude and velocity, it has to be King Kane\u2019s.<\/p>\nMiller:<\/strong>\u00a0Sarr\u2019s against Belgium was the most satisfying, in a \u2018you have to do everything perfectly for this to go in\u2019 way. Even though it wasn\u2019t exactly the same aesthetically, in that respect it reminded me of Dennis Bergkamp in 1998.<\/p>\nIversen:<\/strong> I know I just praised Kane\u2019s goal, but for the purposes of this answer, I\u2019ll go with quality \u2026 and Nusa\u2019s sweeping strike against Ivory Coast was so sweet live.<\/p>\nThe only team who can stop France winning the World Cup is\u2026<\/p>\n
James:<\/strong> France. They\u2019ll have to be their own worst enemies to mess this up with such extraordinary attacking talent. If that\u2019s not the answer you\u2019re looking for, I\u2019d say Spain.<\/p>\nKay:<\/strong> I\u2019m backing France and have done since the start, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that much of a certainty. It could face a quarter-final against Morocco and, beyond that, a semi-final against Portugal or Spain. There are contenders on the other side of the draw, too. France is the favourite, but not overwhelmingly so.<\/p>\nHay:<\/strong> Spain. Get at Kounde down France\u2019s right. Get Rodri to do a job on Olise. And dominate possession. But that\u2019s theoretical. France will win it.<\/p>\nWilliamson:<\/strong> Spain is lurking ominously in that half of the draw.<\/p>\nSpiers:<\/strong> The team with the best defence, or the one who is hardest to beat. Given its record of winning multiple tournaments, plus the Messi factor, that\u2019s Argentina.<\/p>\nAnka:<\/strong> You need a team with good full-backs who can pin back France\u2019s wingers. You need a midfield that can dominate possession and keep it away from Rabiot, Tchouameni and possibly N\u2019Golo Kante for extended periods of time. Morocco can scare them. Spain can hurt them. It\u2019ll be difficult, but not impossible.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/saibiri-morocco-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Could Morocco stop France? (Justin Setterfield\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Corrigan:<\/strong> Spain for me \u2014 it\u2019d gone a bit under the radar but Unai Simon has not conceded a goal so far, and barely even had a save to make. There\u2019s only one ball, so if La Roja can control possession, pin France back, there\u2019s little Olise, Mbappe and Dembele will be able to do.<\/p>\nHughes:<\/strong> Perhaps I\u2019m alone but I think France can be beaten. It only takes a few minutes for a World Cup campaign to unravel and Morocco and Spain are potentially in their way before the semi-finals. I think both of these nations are capable of winning it if the breaks go their way.<\/p>\nWeese:<\/strong> Argentina. If that is the World Cup final, even though I expect France to win, Argentina will give one heck of a fighting effort, as Lionel Messi looks to go back-to-back.<\/p>\nSlater:<\/strong> I am not sure that France is so good that only it can beat itself \u2026 but it is getting there. Can one of Argentina or Spain take them down? Sure. And of those two, I will go for \u2026 Spain. But I still think France is winning this.<\/p>\nMiller:<\/strong> I\u2019ve had a sneaky, slightly logic-defying hunch from the start that Brazil will win the whole thing, so I\u2019ll stick with that.<\/p>\nIversen:<\/strong> I had Argentina here until Cape Verde put them on the ropes. So what can beat France? This tournament can. This wild, wild tournament.<\/p>\nBushnell:<\/strong> Spain can. And so could Morocco, Portugal or Argentina. And frankly, so could the U.S. or Mexico. Weird stuff happens in knockout tournaments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last 16 of the World Cup is set and some of soccer\u2019s biggest sides are still fighting…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":911270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[45],"tags":[32299,2841,4740,110,111,291963,4214,2147,179321,24937,12575,311903,32868,392,252300,14609,61348,9249,6026,148962,156,117,30987,8884,2842,83,4785,30656,170,18151,33687,59368,6576,23133,18242,1608,53137,124,220,6673,271,6313,39761,221,2241,15243,128,62,222,129,16997,13125,24922,67,132,66745,68,33686,101292],"class_list":["post-911269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-algeria","tag-argentina","tag-australia","tag-austria","tag-belgium","tag-bosnia-herzegovina","tag-brazil","tag-canada","tag-cape-verde","tag-champions-league","tag-colombia","tag-congo-dr","tag-croatia","tag-culture","tag-curacao","tag-czech-republic","tag-ecuador","tag-egypt","tag-england","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-ghana","tag-haiti","tag-international-football","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-ivory-coast","tag-japan","tag-jordan","tag-mexico-mens-national-team","tag-morocco","tag-netherlands","tag-new-zealand","tag-norway","tag-panama","tag-paraguay","tag-portugal","tag-premier-league","tag-qatar","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-scotland","tag-senegal","tag-soccer","tag-south-africa","tag-south-korea","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-sweden","tag-switzerland","tag-tunisia","tag-turkey","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-uruguay","tag-us","tag-us-mens-national-team","tag-uzbekistan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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