As a business, if >60% of my high-income viewers (gen Z + millennials) follow the "woke" ideology, I want to cater to their wants by creating an "underdog" narrative so that I can gain viewership, market share, and loyalty (fans) in this demographic (age & region) to increase my merchandise and ad revenue.
Audience stats: https://www.digitalturbine.com/blog/consumer-research/world-cup-2022-global-audience-global-preferences/#:~:text=Who%27s%20Watching%3F,in%20close%20though%20with%2022%25
It feels like the first games in the group stage often throw up weird results. It’s like sometimes teams need a game to get up to speed. You’ve pointed out Argentina vs Saudi, but the same could be said of Iran vs England — Iran were much better in their next two games. But you weren’t expecting Iran to get through anyway.
Germany aren’t that good anymore. I don’t know why you think Japan beating them was so unlikely.
There is always a team that does unexpectedly well. It is a knockout tournament after the group stage — you have to expect unexpected things to happen. This time it’s Morocco getting through to the semis.
Likewise, 7/8 group winners defeated the #2s in the round of 16.
But the lower ranked teams have excelled in getting nationals from higher ranked associations, and as they play together with less turnover, they might be better teams, if the players themselves aren't as good individually. E.g a large chunk of Morocco could have played for Spain.