By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-06-14 20:34:12 | Updated at 2026-06-15 16:56:48
20 hours ago
Germany enjoyed a fantastic start to their 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign, beating Curaçao 7-1 in Houston. But what can we glean from the thrashing? We look at five stats from the encounter.
7-1
7-1 to Germany. That rings a bell, doesn’t it? This was Germany’s first competitive 7-1 win since this that famous World Cup semi-final victory over Brazil at the 2014 tournament.
Unlike that victory 12 years ago, this result may have been widely expected, but Germany still needed to make sure of a positive start to this World Cup after their opening-game nightmares at the last two editions.
They suffered shock defeats in the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, losing 1-0 to Mexico and 2-1 to Japan respectively, and those results contributed to disastrous group-stage exits at both.
The previous four tournaments in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 all saw Germany open their World Cup with a dominant win in their first game of the finals, scoring four or more goals on each occasion. All four of those World Cups saw the Germans progress to at least the semi-finals, winning it in 2014 after opening the tournament with a 4-0 win over Portugal.
This will be Germany’s easiest game of the tournament for sure, but it will give them confidence of further success this time out. Curaçao are ranked 82nd in the latest edition of the FIFA World Rankings, while Ecuador (24th) and Ivory Coast (33rd) are both within the top 35.
26 Minutes
Before this tournament, we looked at how Deniz Undav could be an important player for Germany at this World Cup following his great domestic form in 2025-26.
He may not have forced his way into Julian Nagelsmann’s starting XI for the game against Curaçao, but he was excellent after coming off the substitutes bench in the 64th minute.
Undav provided a goal and two assists in the 7-1 rout, and despite only playing 26 minutes, he became the first player to be involved in as many as three goals in a single appearance at this tournament. He was also only the second German player to assist two goals in a World Cup game as a substitute, after Pierre Littbarski versus United Arab Emirates in 1990.
The Stuttgart striker has now scored seven goals in 10 international appearances under Nagelsmann, with only Jamal Musiala (9), Kai Havertz (11) and Florian Wirtz (11) scoring more since the former Bayern Munich coach first took charge in September 2023. All those players have played at least twice as many games under Naglesmann than Undav, though. No player to be handed more than one cap under the German has a better minutes-per-goal ratio than Undav (57 mins per goal).
The former Brighton man was one of eight Germans to be involved in a goal in this match. In fact, this was the first time that as many as eight different players have scored or assisted at least one goal in a World Cup match for Germany since they thrashed Saudi Arabia 8-0 in their opening game of the 2002 finals.
239 Goals
This isn’t a record that they’ll keep forever, but it’s something Germany can shout about now, for sure.
With their seven goals in this thrashing of Curaçao they reached 239 goals across the history of the men’s World Cup (including games as West Germany) and overtook Brazil’s tally of 238 to become the all-time leading scorers in the competition’s history.
Germany are one of just seven nations to have scored 100+ goals in the history of the men’s World Cup and are now 11 goals shy of hitting the 150-goal mark.
They are also one of just three nations to have averaged over two goals per game in the history of the tournament (2.12), alongside Hungary (2.72) and Brazil (2.07).
78 years, 260 days
Dick Advocaat broke the record as the oldest manager in men’s FIFA World Cup history in this game. The Dutchman, aged 78 years and 260 days, became the first coach to lead a game in the competition aged over 75 years old.
Advocaat will extend that record later in these finals, too, with his side still guaranteed to play two more games at the 2026 World Cup. When Curaçao play Ivory Coast on 25 June in their final group stage match, he’ll be 78 years, 271 days old.
Curaçao are the first men’s World Cup debutants since South Korea in 1954 to concede as many as seven goals in their first match (9), while their six-goal loss was also the heaviest suffered by a debuting team in the competition since that same game (South Korea 0-9 Hungary).
The Blue Wave will need to lean on his experience in their final two games against Ecuador and Ivory Coast if they are to cause any shocks, but despite the eventual thrashing, there were flashes in this encounter to suggest that they could pose a threat both of those sides on the counter-attack.
Their brightest period game came in the spell just before and after scoring their only goal of the match through Livano Comenencia in the 21st minute, but their momentum was completely killed by the hydration break midway through the first half (not the first time it has had that effect at this World Cup).
0 Cards
Referee Jalal Jayed didn’t brandish a single card in the Germany vs Curaçao encounter.
This was just the ninth game across the last nine tournaments to not see a single card given to a player in the match, and the first in 2026 – a big difference from the opening game between Mexico and South Africa, where we saw a remarkable three red cards dished out.
The only two games at the last World Cup not to see a single card given were England vs USA and Germany vs Japan, while in 2018 there were no cards given in Uruguay vs Saudi Arabia or Argentina vs Iceland.
Seeing no cards was perhaps surprising considering it ranked midway in the 2026 tournament for fouls committed (29), with four games seeing more and four seeing less before it. There was even a penalty awarded in the first half following a foul by Riechedly Bazoer on Felix Nmencha.
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