within a whisker of A [doing] 復習

Akira Nishino will step down as head coach of the Japanese national team though he took it to a whisker of reaching the World Cup quarterfinals for the first time.

At a news conference on July 5, after Nishino and the Samurai Blue squad returned to Japan from Russia, Kozo Tashima, the president of the Japan Football Association, revealed that Nishino would not be asked to continue in his post when his current contract expires at the end of July.

http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/AJ201807050049.html

今回気になったのは熟語で用いられているwhisker / (h)wískɚ / です。上記ではwithinが省略されa whisker of beingの形で用いられています。まずwhiskerを『ジーニアス英和辞典』で調べると「ほおひげ」「（ネコ・ネズミなどの）ひげ」「わずかの余地，差」とあるので、今回は3つ目の意味で使用されていることがわかります。続いて熟語の意味は「ほとんど…の寸前である」とありました。

Cambridge Dictionaryで定義を調べると“If you come within a whisker of doing something, you almost do it or it almost happens to you”と記載されていました。(Kiwi girl)