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Did you miss yesterday’s games? Two penalty kick shoutouts saw Russia eliminate Spain and Croatia survive against Denmark after identical 1-1 scorelines through 120 minutes. Russia is the home team and you never know how far that momentum is going to carry them, but the draw has really broken nicely for a talented Croatia team that did not play their best game on Sunday. With Spain out of this half of the bracket, it is wide open.
Brazil vs. Mexico
Time: 7:00 AM
Location: Samara Arena, Samara
TV: FOX (English) and Telemundo (Spanish)
Announcing team: John Strong and Stu Holden (English)
Streaming: Fox Sports Go and Telemundo Deportes
Brazil got a reprieve in this match when South Korea knocked Germany out of the World Cup and Mexico advanced in second from the group instead of Brazil, thus avoiding a rematch of Brazil’s humiliating 7-1 home loss in World Cup 2014.
But be careful what you wish for as Mexico have a habit of playing up or down to their competition. Brazil will try to take the game to Mexico, which is what they want. Sweden throttled the CONCACAF standard bearers 3-0 by sitting back, being organized and counter attacking. A great way to play against Mexico that is not what Brazil is going to do. This might be one of the better games of the knockout rounds if Mexico withstands the early pressure as they will definite find chances against Brazil.
These two teams played to a scoreless draw in the 2014 World Cup group stages so they are familiar with each other on the world’s biggest stage.
Belgium vs. Japan
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: Rostov Arena, Rostov-On-Don
TV: FOX (English) and Telemundo (Spanish)
Announcing team: JP Dellecamera and Tony Meola (English)
Streaming: Fox Sports Go and Telemundo Deportes
Belgium won the unwinnable group finale against England playing a reserve heavy squad en route to a 1-0 win. As a result of that match, Belgium was one of only three teams to finish with a perfect nine points from the group stage along with Uruguay and Croatia. Both those teams have already advanced to the quarterfinals knocking out Portugal and Denmark respectively.
Belgium will be looking to reach the quarterfinals of the World Cup for the third time (1986 and 2014) while Japan are intent of winning a round of 16 match for the first time in their history. But to make history, Japan will have to derail Belgium’s national team record 22 match unbeaten streak.