World Cup diary: Days 7 and 8 - France need Mbappe magic, Messi matches Maradona and Germany strike late

It was the World weekend in Qatar that produced some shocks and saw superstars of the game rise to the big occasion.

Saturday was all about France and Argentina, two of the favourites to go all the way in the competition, picking up vital wins to strengthen their qualification bids.

Following their shock loss to Saudi Arabia, Argentina badly needed victory over Mexico and needed captain Leo Messi to make the breakthrough after a tough 64 minutes of stalemate.

Messi netted for the eighth time at a World Cup finals, equalling the goal tally of the late, great Diego Maradona just a day after the second anniversary of Maradona's untimely death.

Holders France also needed a big player to step up to the mark and in Kylian Mbappe they had the perfect candidate.

Given a hard battle by the dangerous Danes, France scored first through the mercurial Mbappe but were pegged back by Andreas Christensen's leveller.

Kylian's killer instinct delivered an 86th minute winner to confirm Les Bleus' place in the last sixteen.

It was also a G'day for the Socceroos, as Australia won a World Cup match for the first time in 12 years by edging out Tunisia 1-0 in a tense contest.

Mitchell Duke's terrific header edged out the Africans, meaning a draw against Denmark could put the Aussies in the knockout stages this week.

Argentina's conquerors Saudi Arabia were unable to repeat their performance of four days earlier, beaten 2-0 by a Poland side lifted by goal machine Robert Lewandowski's first-ever World Cup strike.

A thrilling contest saw chances galore created at both ends, the Saudi's left to rue a penalty miss with the score at 0-0.

Sunday produced the surprises, with Japan brought back down to earth following their fine victory over Germany as they suffered a 1-0 defeat to the same Costa Rica side that shipped out seven goals to Spain.

And while an ageing Belgium team may not have been expected to set the competition alight this year, they were considered red-hot favourites to add to their victory over Canada by defeating Morocco in the lunchtime kick-off.

Morocco hadn't won a match at the World Cup finals since 1998 when they provided the opposition for Scotland's last appearance at the finals and duly registered a 3-0 win - could we have imagined that 24 years later we would still be waiting to see our country on football's biggest stage again?

But the Atlas Lions roared once again and Kevin De Bruyne was unable to lift the Belgians on this occasion.

VAR thwarted the Africans when they found the net in the first half, Romain Saiss adjudged to be offside.

A similar free kick on 73 minutes led to Belgium's normally steady goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois committing a howler, with Saiss claiming the final touch to put Morocco ahead.

It was no more than the Moroccans deserved and you could almost feel the celebrations in Casablanca when Zakaria Aboukhlal thundered home a second in stoppage time to seal victory.

We then witnessed the fastest goal of the tournament so far, Canada's Alphonso Davies bulleting home a header just 69 seconds into their match against Croatia.

The 2018 finalists were briefly on the ropes but responded impressively with four goals including two by Hoffenheim hitman Andrej Kramaric to win comfortably in the end, eliminating Canada in the process.

The final act of the weekend was the battle of the heavyweights, as a Spain side buoyed by their 7-0 win over Costa Rica took on Germany, who couldn't afford to lose again following their slump against the Japanese.

It looked wunderbar for the men from Bavaria when Antonio Rudiger flashed home a header, only for the pesky VAR to rule it out.

Two substitutes were to make their mark on the game in the second half.

Spain's Alvaro Morata did what he did against Costa Rica and climbed off the bench to flick home the opener just eight minutes after entering the fray.

Germany were staring a second consecutive group stages elimination in the face when Bremen striker Niclas Fullkrug repeated the Morata feat just 13 minutes after replacing veteran Thomas Muller.

An unstoppable 83rd minute rocket shot from the big German kept his country in the tourney.

The big two will progress to the last 16 if they win their final group games, and it would be a seismic shock if Japan or Costa Rica were to stop that from happening.