During Argentina’s crucial win on Wednesday night, BBC commentator Danny Murphy had viewers scratching their heads.
Lionel Messi kept his and Argentina’s World Cup dream alive after a comfortable 2-0 win over Poland. As full-time edged closer, victory looked certain for Argentina. So, eyes turned to the Mexico vs Saudi Arabia game where second place was still up for grabs.
Poland and Mexico both had the same points and were level in every other statistic that mattered. This meant that the team with the fewest number of yellow cards would progress to the knockout stages.
Bizarrely, Murphy seemed to either not know about the permutations or chose to simply ignore them. The British commentator urged Poland to show more “fight” and to risk getting more bookings.
This is your brain on proper football man.
— Grace Robertson 🏳️⚧️ (@GraceOnFootball) November 30, 2022
Danny Murphy is angry at Poland for not picking up more bookings against Argentina, despite currently progressing to the last-16 due to having fewer bookings than Mexico.
— Amos Murphy (@AmosMurphy_) November 30, 2022
Danny Murphy asks “why haven’t Poland showed a bit of fight and got more yellow cards” when the lack of yellow cards is literally the thing keeping them in the tournament
— Evan Fanning (@evanfanning) November 30, 2022
Luckily Poland kept their cool and did not fly into tackles as Murphy had suggested.
Either way, it didn’t matter, thanks to a 95th-minute goal for Saudi Arabia, Poland went through on goal difference.
Poland must now face off against France in the round of 16 on Sunday afternoon.