Five glaring observations from group play games so far of the FIFA World Cup

It’s been over a week since the FIFA World Cup in Qatar kicked off and what a World Cup it has been. The merger of technology and FIFA directives on the Beautiful Game have already made this a tournament to remember — and we’re barely finishing up the group stages.

If you’ve been intently watching here at home, chances are you’ve most likely noticed the following five things we have over the course of the last nine days.

Blame it on the physical play and the theatrics that generally follow (looking at you Brazil) but stoppage times in these games have been abnormally long. England’s 6-2 opening win against Iran totaled nearly 30 minutes of added time between the two halves. Iran can thank the referee’s watch that saw 12 minutes of extra time added to the end of the match in which the Iranians scored two goals in the 98th and 101st minute against a 10-man Wales.

» READ MORE: U.S.-Iran World Cup prediction: Expect a heated atmosphere on and off the field

But there’s a science to this. FIFA recently issued a directive to all officials to make sure “unnatural lost time” is accounted for at the end of each half. So for every flop and roll, slow-moving substitution and goalkeepers taking naps on top of the ball after a save is being factored in by FIFA officiating crews. The result? A favorable amount of bonus soccer.

Much to the chagrin of many nations, the video assistant referee or VAR has definitely put in work this World Cup. So far, there have been seven disallowed goals upon the referee’s return from the video screen. The latest was during Brazil’s Group G match against Switzerland, after a beautiful goal from Brazil’s Vinicus Jr., was disallowed after his teammate Richarlison was offsides on the ball. It turned out OK since Brazil’s Casemiro scored minutes later.

And the nation VAR nearly shortchanged? Mexico — after a questionable penalty call in its match against Poland. But there’s a saying in soccer that the “ball doesn’t lie,” and in this case it didn’t for Mexico as Poland’s Robert Lewandowski missed the penalty that would have put Poland up one, forcing the two to settle for a scoreless draw.

There’s a bit of March Madness to this year’s FIFA World Cup. The underdogs have been taking it to early favorites and in some cases, beating them.

The biggest has to be Saudi Arabia’s Group C win over Argentina. Interesting note for the bettors out there: If you were to put $100 on that match for the Saudis to win, you would’ve been $12,500 richer at the end of 104 minutes.

Tack on Japan’s 2-1 win over Germany; and Costa Rica’s 1-0 win over Japan — both in Group E — and all of the games that should have been Ws for favorites that ended up as draws (we see you Ecuador vs. the Netherlands and U.S. vs. England); and this is already set up for a must-watch final week of group play across several groups.

…And dare I say it, bad.

While soccer fans generally take little stock in the talking heads during a broadcast, it’s hard not to notice we’re getting virtually nothing of real value from the corps of analysts Fox hired. The collective of former U.S. National Team players Alexi Lalas, Landon Donovan, Cobi Jones, Stu Holden, Clint Dempsey are just a handful of the pundits Fox has squeezed behind a camera — all of which seem to be saying the same thing (particularly when it comes to the USMNT matches) or saying nothing by way of any real insight.

Look, this reporter is a huge Dempsey fan but even he completely lost me in the World Cup opening match between Qatar and Ecuador when he suggested that referees need to negate marginal offsides to “keep the game free-flowing.”

Saving the best for last here, but it was pretty awesome to watch as the camera panned a sea of supporters ahead of the U.S.-Wales opening Group B match to see a guy dressed head to waist in Phillies gear sitting in a Qatari stadium. This just proves you can take a man out of Philly, even to a place like Qatar … but you can’t take his Phillies gear away from the man.

One more: This controversial “who scored it” goal between Portugal’s Bruno Fernandes and Cristiano Ronaldo was the 80th goal of this FIFA World Cup. It’s clear this ball didn’t touch CR7 but he wasn’t saying that at first. After review, the goal was given to Fernandes, his first of two in a 2-0 Portuguese win over Uruguay.