by Sylvain Jamet

Five out of the eight games from the last 16 round have been played so far and we had one surprise.

10th place Australia beat 7th place Brazil, who were also the 2007 runner-up.

Germany 4 Sweden 1 Mittag, Sasic x2 ( 1 pen), Marozsan; Sembrant

Germany outclassed a Swedish team that ends the competition with no win in four and had an overall poor tournament.

China 1 Cameroon 0 Wang SH SH

A tight game where the team with the most experience prevailed. Cameroon showed excellent attacking football but could not find a goal to take it to the next round.

Brazil 0 Australia 1 Simon

The first upset in the round of 16 when Brazil, who won their three previous games and had not conceded a goal so far, were sent home by Australia.

The lone goal of the game came on the break with a De Vanna shot fumbled by goalie Luciana in the path of Simon who finished from close range. Brazil had their chance and hit the post but were undone in a tightly contested game by a goalkeeping error.

France 3 Korea Republic 0 Delie x2, Thomis

Korea deprived of their playmaker So-Yun, who plays for Chelsea Ladies, where unable to trouble France who started the game strongly. They scored twice in the first eight minutes and finished the game with a third goal three minutes into the second half.

France are now set to meet Germany in what could have been a World Cup final but ends up being a quarter-final.

Canada 1 Switzerland 0 Belanger

The host carry on in the tournament with another tight win by using some physical play while Switzerland were the entertaining team but could not find a goal.

Games still  to be played

Norway v England

USA v Colombia

Japan v Netherlands

Controversy about the knock-out stage draw

As noted by Jeff Kassouff and Grant Wahl, FIFA actually fixed the draw, so that we ended up with one half of the draw with number one ranked Germany, number two USA and number three France in the same side of the bracket.

Sweden were not seeded despite being the fifth ranked team in the world by FIFA, who preferred to seed Brazil instead and Sweden ended up with the USA, Australia and Nigeria in the Group of Death.

Sweden ended up also in the same side of the draw due to their poor group stage results, meaning the holders Japan and the home team Canada – surprise surprise – escaped playing any of the top five teams before the final.

China (16) v USA (2) or Colombia (28)

Germany (1) v France (3)

Australia (10) v Japan (4) or Netherlands ( 12)

Norway (11) v England (6) v Canada (8)