The 11 best goals of World Cup Day 14, ranked

From Paulinho to Granqvist to Waston and more.

Wednesday was one of the most stressful and thrilling days of the 2018 World Cup. We saw Germany crash out and Mexico get bailed out by new best friends South Korea, Costa Rica play beautifully with nothing but pride on the line, and Brazil take care of business against Serbia.

We also saw goals. So many goals.

Let’s rank them:

11. Own goal, Edson Alvarez

We don’t celebrate own goals in this list. This was heartbreaking for Alvarez, and only made better by the fact that Mexico qualified a few minutes later thanks to South Korea.

10. Granqvist’s penalty to double Sweden’s lead

This was a well taken penalty, but it’s still a penalty.

9. Sommer own goal for Switzerland off the head

I know I said a moment ago that we don’t celebrate own goals and we don’t really celebrate penalty finishes, but when you play your penalty off the crossbar, off the goalie’s head and into the net, we laugh and applaud and celebrate it into the night. This was objectively hilarious and awesome, and Sommer couldn’t even be too mad because his team advanced anyway.

8. Augustinsson fires in past Ochoa

The buildup play here was a bit sloppy, but Augustinsson did well to not lose his head and hit this ball cleanly.

7. Kim Young-gwon breaks down Germany

This goal probably meant the most on the day, as it killed Germany and saved Mexico all in one swing of the boot. But it was a decently easy finish, and Kim was initially ruled offside — he was bailed out on VAR because it turned out the ball came off the foot of a Germany player, thus rendering the offside ruling invalid. But still, an awesome moment.

6. Kendall Waston heads home for Costa Rica

Go on there, put it up for the big fella and let him get his head on it! Another goal from another absolute unit! This was Costa Rica’s first goal in the World Cup, and clearly meant so much to this team.

5. Thiago Silva wins it at the near post

Was Thiago Silva aided by a whole lot of scrapping at the near post that cleared things out for him? Most certainly, though I’m pretty sure it was actually Serbia’s Aleksandar Mitrovic who did most of the clearing out. Still, that run and that finish is a thing of beauty.

4. Drmic finishes coolly for Switzerland

This is just a beautiful bit of play. Offense is notoriously difficult to control, but this is an almost textbook offensive buildup and finish. That’s right off the training ground, and wonderful.

3. Dzemaili smashes it

Another great bit of team play, though this gets bonus points because I thought Dzemaili was going to break the camera behind the net when he hit this. Boy absolutely smashed the ball.

2. Son Heung-min breaks free

I love this goal so much. So many routes to choose from, might as well go for old Route One. Neuer was out, Germany was desperate, South Korea got the ball and hit a 70-yarder over the top to an on-running Son Heung-min. And that’s game.

1. Paulinho from Coutinho

The pass from Coutinho. The touch from Paulinho. The beautiful dink of a finish. It wasn’t quite Messi’s goal from yesterday, but that’s absolutely brilliant.