The World Cup group stage plays a decisive factor on who could emerge as the tournament’s winner. Here’s how it all works.
In the 2026 World Cup, there will be an expansion to 48 teams. In the 2023 Women’s World Cup, there will also be an expansion to 32 teams.With four teams in one group, the games are played round-robin style. Every team plays each other once, and the top two teams with the most points accumulated after three games advance to the knockout stage. Since there are six total matches in one group, that means there are 729 different win-loss-draw outcomes that could happen within those four teams.
For example, a first-place team in Group A would be rewarded for coming out on top by playing the second-place team from Group B, and so on. Here’s how the round of 16 scheduling looks like in Qatar:First-place Group C vs. Second-place Group DFirst-place Group F vs. Second-place Group EWhat is the ‘Group of Death’?
If there was such a group in Qatar, it would probably be Group E, which includes Spain , Germany , Japan and Costa Rica . The first two are recent World Cup winners from the past decade, while Japan made a dark-horse run in 2010 and Costa Rica finished eighth in 2014 after topping the “Group of Death” alongside Uruguay, Italy and England. The group stage in 2026 will look much different compared to the past seven World Cups. That’s because the tournament will be expanded from 32 teams to 48.
The top two teams advance to the knockout stage after the first group stage. If there’s a draw, Marco van Basten, FIFA’s chief officer for technical development, said there could be penalty shootouts if the game is tied at the end of regulation to ensure a winner, though that hasn’t been confirmed .
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