Anatomy of Two World Cup Shocks: When Underdogs Don't Play on Inspiration

In Hamburg, in the last days of November 2026, I sat in my small room with two recordings. One was Argentina's 1-2 defeat to Saudi Arabia at Lusail Stadium on November 22. The other was Germany's 1-2 defeat to Japan at Khalifa International Stadium on November 23, exactly one day apart. Both were called “shocks.” But when I replayed them frame by frame, I saw something else: in both matches, the team rated lower did not play on inspiration. They played on structure, and that structure was repeated down to every single step.

People usually tell the story of a shock through a single moment: Salem Al-Dawsari's long-range strike, Takuma Asano's burst of speed. I tell it through what happened before that moment — through the way a back line held its position, through the breathing rhythm of a team that knew it would have to run more than its opponent.

The backdrop of two fateful days

Argentina entered the 2026 World Cup on a 36-match unbeaten run, with Lionel Messi at 35 in what was widely called his last World Cup. Saudi Arabia, under French coach Hervé Renard, sat at the bottom of Group C and was barely mentioned in any discussion of contenders. Germany entered under Hansi Flick as one of the favourites, with a squad drawn largely from Bayern Munich. Japan under Hajime Moriyasu was a stable Asian side, but few placed them on the same level as the Germans.

The scripts of the two matches were eerily similar. The stronger team held the ball, took the lead through an individual moment from the penalty spot — Messi in the 10th minute, İlkay Gündoğan in the 33rd — and then slowed down. The weaker team endured patiently, changed its structure at half-time, and turned the game around. Saudi Arabia scored twice within five minutes of the second half starting. Japan scored twice within the final eight minutes.

I remember re-watching footage of all four teams before the tournament. Saudi Arabia had lost a few friendlies on the eve of the World Cup, and that made almost nobody believe in them. Japan had a squad full of players plying their trade in the Bundesliga — this mattered, because they understood the rhythm and habits of German football. It was an underrated advantage.

What stands out is how the European press named these two matches: “a miracle,” “an earthquake,” “the upset of the century.” I do not deny the emotion in those words. But after nine years watching teams from the edge of the training ground, I have learned that they often hide the most important thing: the work that was prepared in advance.

Structure lies behind every moment

Let me start with Saudi Arabia. Before the match, few knew that Renard's team had spent weeks training one single thing: the offside trap. Against Argentina, the Saudi back line pushed up again and again, and Argentina was flagged offside ten times, the highest figure ever recorded for a team in a single World Cup match.

Luck played no part here. This was the product of training. I remember a session with an under-19 side I used to follow years ago, when a midfielder repeated the same three-corner passing drill for four periods. What I counted was not the number of passes but the number of times he turned his head to check his shoulder before receiving — 127 in a single session. Saudi Arabia's structure operates on the same logic. Every time Argentina had the ball, the whole back line stepped up one beat, then dropped back one beat. That can only come from practice repeated to the point of boredom.

With Japan, the story lay elsewhere: the second half. In the first half, Japan deliberately sat deep, conceded possession and waited. Germany dominated the ball but could not create real space in front of the box. After the break, Moriyasu changed things: he sent on players capable of pressing and accelerating — Ritsu Doan, Takuma Asano, Kaoru Mitoma. From the 60th minute onward, Japan pushed its line higher, and Germany's midfield began to lose the ball in dangerous areas. Doan's equaliser in the 75th minute and Asano's winner in the 83rd came from exactly that window.

This is where I want to pause. A team's first beat does not come from its feet; it comes from its ears. A team that listens to its opponent's rhythm knows when to accelerate. Japan did not run faster than Germany for 90 minutes. They ran faster than Germany for exactly twenty minutes, at exactly the right time. The difference was not fitness; it was timing.

In the Argentina match, one small detail I noted: Saudi defenders stood no more than ten metres apart, and every time the ball travelled toward Messi, the nearest man stepped up at once and the next one covered. Messi had no room to turn. In the first half he still created a few chances, but once the score was level, Argentina switched to long balls, and that was when its structure fell apart.

For Germany, the problem lay on the flanks. The Japanese back line sat deep, conceding space on the wings but sealing the centre. Germany moved the ball wide, but no one could produce a spark from crosses. When Moriyasu reinforced the midfield in the second half, Germany's full-backs were forced higher, and the space behind them became the territory of Mitoma and Doan.

One detail many overlooked: the 2026 World Cup was the first to allow five substitutions. For a team with Japan's depth, this was a real tactical advantage. Moriyasu could change half his line-up after the break without losing structure, and he did exactly that.

I once spent months following a fourth-tier team in Hamburg during the season without crowds. There I learned that a weak team cannot win by playing like a strong one. They win by choosing the right moment to commit their energy. Saudi Arabia chose the second half. Japan chose the final twenty minutes. Both understood something many big teams forget: you cannot press high for a whole match, but you can press high for a short window, if you pick the right moment.

There is one metric I still use when replaying footage, though I try not to overuse it: the number of passes a stronger team completes before losing the ball in the opponent's half. In the first half of Germany–Japan, Germany held the ball for long spells, but mostly through safe sideways passes. In the second half, as Japan pushed up, that number dropped sharply, and Germany was forced into long balls. A team that loses its short passing has lost real control, even if the stats still show it with more possession.

In the stands at Lusail that day, I remember the image of Argentine fans sitting in silence after the final whistle. No one was angry. They just sat there, looking down at the pitch, as if trying to understand what had just happened. The pain of fans does not need tactics to be heard. But in this case, part of that pain came from tactics: the feeling that their team had not prepared for what their opponent had prepared for weeks.

I remember another image at Khalifa: after Asano's goal, a German substitute sat with his head down, hands on his knees. He said nothing to anyone for the rest of the match. Elite football is decided by small details like that — not by a flash of brilliance, but by whether a team has prepared for that flash in advance.

What I learned from these two matches, and from years standing at the edge of a pitch, is that a strong team needs more than good players. It needs a department capable of listening. The beat-keeper never stands in the middle of the pitch. At national-team level, that person is often the assistant coach, the data analyst, the one in the stands counting every step of the opponent. When their team wins, few mention their names.

The counter-view: when “a miracle” is used to excuse responsibility

There is one way of reading these two matches I do not accept: calling them “miracles.” When you call a weak team's victory a miracle, you quietly admit that the strong team needs to change nothing — it only needs the next miracle not to happen. This is the biggest blind spot in how the shock is told.

Based on my experience watching matches, most shocks at national-team level do not come from the weak side playing unexpectedly; they come from the strong side opening the door itself. Argentina and Germany made the same mistake: they built their game on individual skill while their opponents built theirs on collective structure. When Messi was isolated between the lines, when Germany's midfielders lost the ball in midfield, their structure collapsed because it had no fallback.

There is one more cultural blind spot that I, as a Korean writing for European readers, always want to raise. When an Asian or Middle Eastern team wins, the European press tends to emphasise “spirit,” “desire,” “heart.” Those words are not wrong, but they place the focus in the wrong spot. Japan beat Germany with a plan detailed to the minute. Saudi Arabia beat Argentina with a back line trained to step up on the right beat. Calling that “heart” is a compliment that carries condescension.

The signal for the 2026 World Cup

We watch the match, but we live in the gaps between matches. The signal I will follow at the 2026 World Cup is not who wins it, but whether the big teams have learned this lesson. If Argentina and Germany still build their game around a single star, the next shocks are only a matter of time. If they learn to cope with a high press in the decisive minutes, they will return. Football does not reward pure inspiration. Football rewards structure that listens.