Women's World Cup: Group stage ends with more shocks as Germany crash out & Morocco progress

2023 is the World Cup that keeps on giving, banishing the pre-conceptions that expanding the tournament to 32 teams would only lead to more thrashings than have been seen in the past.

Instead, this is the World Cup of shock results, more competitive than ever before and with the gaps between teams near the top of the world rankings and those way down the list much smaller than anybody really realised even a couple of weeks ago.

Group H was the last to wrap before the knockout stages, saving perhaps the best for last.

South Korea 1-1 Germany - Group H

Germany are out of the World Cup before the knockout rounds - let that sink in.

This is one of only two countries to have lifted the trophy more than once, the record eight-time European champions and continental finalists as recently as last summer.

It is not the peak vintage of the mid-2000s team that dominated every competition they played in, but a generation with plenty of developing young talents was threatening to reach that level, especially when they hammered Morocco 6-0 in their opening game.

But defeat to Colombia next up was their first in the group stage since 1995 and a clear sign that not everything was as good as it first seemed.

Stil, nobody expected a South Korea team beaten by both Colombia and Morocco to cause problems. Yet veteran midfielder Cho So-hyun, released by Tottenham in June, scored an early goal to set one of the all-time great sporting shocks in motion.

Germany equalised through Alexandra Popp just before half-time - the Wolfsburg striker has been carrying her team - without any further breakthrough. A draw wasn't necessarily enough to knock them out, but the result in the other game transpired to do so.

For all their possession and chances, Germany didn't do enough to get the second goal they needed. Even through more than 15 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the game, balls into the box were repelled and clear opportunities were disappointingly sparse.

South Korea were still eliminated themselves, but they threw up a huge shock nonetheless.

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Morocco 1-0 Colombia - Group H

What an incredible few months at World Cup tournaments for Morocco. The men's team managed to get all the way to the semi-finals in 2022 and now the women have got through to the knockouts rounds at the first attempt...massively against the odds, it should be said.

The writing appeared to be on the wall for Morocco in game one when they were torn apart by Germany and shipped six goals - at that point the most any team had conceded in this year's tournament. But they turned it round with a 1-0 win over South Korea and then repeated the trick by beating a Colombia side already pretty sure of their own place in the last 16.

The decisive moment in that game came deep into first half stoppage time when Morocco were awarded a penalty. Ghizlane Chebbak saw her effort from 12 yards saved, but Anissa Lahmari was quickest to react and turned in the rebound to put her team into a lead they never relinquished.

Victory alone wasn't enough because Morocco also needed help from South Korea. Their game finished first, leaving the players to gather together and wait for the result they could only have dreamed of a couple of hours earlier.

Next up will be a glamour knockout clash with France. Given that this has been the World Cup of the upset, don't count anything out at all.