Winner: Own goals
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The leading scorer in this year’s World Cup isn’t just Harry Kane with five goals. “Own goal” also has five thus far. “OG” has scored for Iran, France, Croatia, Russia and Senegal. The only World Cup with more was France 1998, when there were six total over the tournament’s 64 games.
Loser: Burger King
On Russian social media, the fast-food chain promised a lifetime supply of Whoppers to women there who get pregnant by World Cup players, thus ensuring “the success of the Russian team for generations to come.” Burger King has apologized for “the clearly offensive promotion.”
Loser: Wayne Rooney
Everyone’s favorite overrated, balding Scouser scored just one goal in 11 World Cup matches for England. It took Harry Kane just one match to double that.
Winner: Senegal
African football is fantastic, but also a new discovery for people who aren’t fond of watching the African Cup of Nations, even if everybody should be. Senegal was smart, and Poland acted like it was supposed to win and could do what it wanted with the upstarts. Nope. Brilliant upset.
Winner: Japanese, Colombian and Senegalese fans
Japanese and Senegalese fans saw their teams notch historic wins, then took the time to clean their sections. After losing to Japan, Colombian fans joined in. Talk about class acts.
Losers: Fox and Telemundo
Between time-zone differences (most games are on in the morning here) and the absence of Team USA, U.S. viewership of the World Cup through the first round was down 44 percent compared with four years ago, according to Nielsen. Fox’s average of 1.98 million viewers is down from 3.55 million on ESPN in 2014. Telemundo’s telecasts from Russia have averaged 1.87 million viewers, while Univision averaged 3.3 million from Brazil.
Winner: Kate Abdo
“Should I buy you all Russia shirts?” the Fox host said, sounding exasperated as her panelists in Red Square praised the home team. “What’s going on here?” Alexi Lalas said she was too young to be cynical. “Believe in love. Believe in romance. Believe in Russia,” Lalas said, biting his lip as Abdo responded with a world-class eye-roll that said everything that needed to be said and then some.
Winner: The flaming wallet
A little-known magician’s gimmick got international publicity when Fox captured a fan lighting his cigarette with a “Flame Wallet” during the Spain-Iran match. It was, arguably, the most dramatic moment in the game.
Loser: The thunderclap
Iceland fans’ emphatic ritual was silenced in a devastating loss to Nigeria on Friday, as the team teeters on the brink of elimination.
Winner: Germany
Wow. Just … wow. You didn’t know how, but you knew they would.
Loser: John Guidetti
The World Cup needed a J.R. Smith. Guidetti, a Swedish striker, should have done what Smith did.
Winner/Loser: Argentina
When Nigeria smote Iceland, Argentina got new life. But chaos, player dissent and reports of mutiny is not a good look.
Winner: England
What a battering they laid on a horrid Panama team.
Loser: U.S. men’s national team
You’re worse than Panama?
Winner: Felipe Baloy
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Sure, Panama got crushed 6-1 by England, but did you see the pandemonium when the 37-year-old scored his country’s first-ever World Cup goal?
Loser: Willy Caballero
With his muffed kick against Croatia, Argentina’s goalie proved again for that nation that if something can go wrong, it will.
Loser: Wojciech Szczesny
Dude. If you’re going to come out for a ball, make sure you get it. Keepers get a pass from the refs for a reason. Wreak havoc, do something. That second Senegal goal against Poland was hilarious for so many reasons. The ref let M’Baye Niang on, who lit the jets to touch it past, and that was that, the winning goal.
Winner: Pregnancy-themed goal celebrations
After scoring in Uruguay’s 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia, Luis Suarez did his usual celebration of kissing three fingers (for his wife and two children), but then tucked the ball under his shirt to honor his wife’s pregnancy with their third child.
Winner: Kosovo
Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri celebrated with “Albanian eagle” gestures after their goals in Switzerland’s 2-1 win over Serbia. Might seem unusual until you learn Xhaka’s father was imprisoned and beaten for protesting Yugoslav rule in Kosovo and Shaqiri’s family fled Kosovo shortly after he was born.
Loser: Robert Lewandowski
Poland’s captain and all-time leading scorer has put up a big goose egg this tournament.
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