Morocco‘s Nayef Aguerd scored the first own goal of the tournament in their final group F encounter against Canada on Thursday. The goal was also the 100th in the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
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Needing only a draw to qualify for the World Cup knockouts for the second time in history, Morocco was comfortably ahead by 2-0 when Aguerd’s mishap bridged the goal gap to one. However, it failed to impact the overall result as Morocco held on to the lead and scored a 2-1 victory.
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With it, Morocco finished as Group F toppers and in the process also eliminated world number 2 Belgium from the tournament. They will face the runners-up of Group E which contains Spain, Germany, Japan, and Costa Rica.
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The first goal of the tournament was a penalty by Ecuador’s Enner Valencia in the World Cup opener against hosts Qatar. After 12 days and 40 matches, the tournament’s goal record touched a hundred. With 100 goals in 42 matches, the event has observed an average of 2.38 goals per match.
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While the average is lesser than those observed in high-scoring World Cups such as 2014 (169 goals at 2.64 average) and 2010 (171 goals at 2.67 average), the average as of now is still on the higher end and more than several of its predecessors.
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The tournament has seen several goalless draws that include a record 8 teams (4 games) having scored 0-0 draws in their first encounters. Contrastingly, the previous World Cup had to wait for the third round of group stages to see such a peace treaty.
However, some high-scoring matches such as Spain’s 7-0 mauling of Costa Rica, England‘s 6-2 drubbing of Iran, and a couple of intense Ghana encounters ( 2-3 defeat to Portugal and 3-2 win over South Korea) have ensured that the overall average has remained reasonably high.
