Colombia's Yerry Mina thumped home a second-half header to secure a dramatic 1-0 victory over Senegal on Thursday, putting the South Americans into the World Cup last 16 against England.
England made their way into the knockout stages despite going down 1-0 to Belgium, while Japan became the first team ever to progress thanks to FIFA's new disciplinary tiebreaker rule despite losing to Poland.
Japan made it through Group H in second place thanks to their players having been shown four yellow cards, two fewer than Senegal, with whom they shared the same number of points.
As a result, the Africans have been dumped out of the tournament after being shown six yellow cards to Japan's four.
Africa is now without a representative in the World Cup knockout stages for the first time in 36 years.
"Senegal doesn't qualify because we don't deserve it. This is one of the rules," their coach Aliou Cisse said.
"We have to respect it. We would prefer to be eliminated another way ... we were fully committed and maybe because we were fully committed we got more yellow cards."
Elsewhere, both England and Belgium rested many of their best players in Belgium's win in Kaliningrad, with both teams already having qualified.
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