4:00 AM ET
Bill ConnellyESPN Staff Writer
- Bill Connelly is simply a unit writer for ESPN.com.
In 2026, the World Cup volition grow from 32 to 48 teams, apt with a operation of 16 groups of three. I americium each for enlargement -- it volition let america to get to cognize much teams, players, coaches and instrumentality bases, which is astir ever a positive successful my publication -- but I hatred the thought of teams being guaranteed lone 2 games earlier elimination. With everyone having played 2 matches successful the 2022 World Cup successful Qatar, we've lone conscionable begun to get to cognize these teams and acceptable the stakes for what's to follow.
- World Cup 2022: News and features | Schedule | Squads
What is to travel implicit the adjacent 4 days? Pretty overmuch everything.
After 2 rounds of matches, lone 3 teams person officially clinched advancement to the knockout signifier (France, Brazil and Portugal), and lone 2 person officially been eliminated (Qatar and Canada). Twenty-eight teams inactive person enactment to do, and the crippled twists person already been legion.
Let's instrumentality banal of wherever we've travel implicit the past 9 days and wherever we inactive person to go.
- Stream connected ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, much (U.S.)
Whose likelihood person changed the astir (for the better)?
For the astir part, the teams that began the contention arsenic the astir apt to beforehand person continued apace. Before the World Cup, FiveThirtyEight's SPI ratings gave six teams astatine slightest an 80% accidental of reaching the circular of 16 -- Brazil, Argentina, France, Portugal, Spain and England -- and arsenic things presently stand, 5 of those are astatine 90% oregon higher. (Argentina are astatine 78% aft suffering a shocking upset nonaccomplishment to Saudi Arabia but responding to bushed Mexico.)
Some different teams, however, person seen their stocks soar.
Morocco (91% accidental to advance, up from 46% astatine the commencement of the competition). There was thing enjoyable astir Morocco's 0-0 gully against Croatia successful each team's opener, but erstwhile combined with a 2-0 triumph implicit Belgium connected Sunday, Walid Regragui's squad are well-positioned to advance. Stars Hakim Ziyech and Achraf Hakimi person combined for an assistance and six chances created, Fiorentina midfielder Sofyan Amrabat has been similar a instrumentality erstwhile it comes to shot recoveries, and the Moroccans thoroughly outplayed Belgium. Either a gully with Canada oregon a Croatia triumph implicit Belgium is each they request to advance.
Poland (75% chance, up 37%). As with Morocco, Poland's 2nd lucifer told a vastly antithetic communicative from a goalless opener. Their 2-0 triumph implicit Saudi Arabia positioned them atop Group C -- 1 constituent up of Argentina and Saudi Arabia and 3 up of Mexico -- and yet got prima Robert Lewandowski his archetypal World Cup goal. Goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny has been lasting connected his head, and portion advancement is acold from unafraid going into the Wednesday lucifer with Argentina, they're successful coagulated shape.
Iran (58%, up from 34%). Iran flipped the likelihood connected their caput with the 2-0 triumph implicit Wales connected Friday. Stoppage-time goals from Roozbeh Cheshmi and Ramin Rezaeian lifted their likelihood greatly, arsenic they nary longer request a triumph implicit the US to beforehand (providing Wales don't bushed England); present they lone request a draw. Their defense-heavy operation suggests they would beryllium blessed to play for a stalemate against the US, but their champion moments successful this tourney person travel successful attack.
Ecuador (71%, up from 48%). A gully with Netherlands, combined with Senegal's nonaccomplishment to the Dutch, has positioned Ecuador well. They tin convey Enner Valencia for a batch of that -- helium has scored each 3 of Ecuador's goals (and their past six World Cup goals overall) -- but with the mode they dominated Netherlands (they attempted 15 shots worthy 1.7 xG and allowed lone 2 shots worthy 0.1) they astir apt should person secured each 3 points. As it stands, they inactive indispensable astatine slightest gully with Senegal to guarantee advancement.
Australia (45%, up from 22%). A beauteous aboriginal header from Mitchell Duke successful modulation gave Australia a astonishment 1-0 triumph implicit Tunisia connected Saturday and flipped the Group D likelihood considerably. Despite a dreadful show against France successful their archetypal match, the Socceroos present request lone a gully against Denmark to advance. Denmark are the favorite, but they haven't performed astir arsenic good arsenic they were expected to frankincense far, and their 0-0 gully with Tunisia successful the opener has opened the doorway for the Aussies.
Whose likelihood person changed the astir (for the worse)?
Canada (0% accidental to advance, down from 37% astatine the commencement of the competition). Canada came into the contention arsenic a squad with loads of imaginable and nary World Cup way record. In some of their archetypal 2 matches, they flashed loads of the erstwhile earlier the second overpowered them. They outplayed Belgium successful their archetypal match, but gave up a azygous cleanable counterattack and lost; then, against Croatia, the astir seasoned of seasoned teams, they took an aboriginal pb but got overrun 4-1. Call it a learning acquisition if thing else.
Mexico (17%, down from 54%). Mexico person frankincense acold been done successful by the aforesaid happening afflicting each CONCACAF teams: goal-scoring struggles. The region's 4 teams person combined to people lone 3 goals successful six matches, and nary person travel from Alexis Vega, Hirving "Chucky" Lozano and Mexico. They were amended than Poland for astir of their opening match, and they were Argentina's adjacent astatine times Saturday, but they person managed a 0-0 gully and a 2-0 nonaccomplishment truthful far. Now they request a triumph implicit Saudi Arabia (which volition necessitate scoring) and either a Poland triumph implicit Argentina oregon a ample Argentina triumph implicit Poland to advance.
1:21
Shaka Hislop explains wherefore clip is up for galore of Belgium's stars aft their nonaccomplishment vs. Morocco.
Belgium (33%, down from 62%). Nine players person recorded astatine slightest 120 combined minutes successful Belgium's archetypal 2 matches; 8 are astatine slightest 29 years old, and 3 are astatine slightest 33. For each the method accomplishment and evident endowment this squad inactive boasts -- creator Kevin De Bruyne, goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, et al. -- some Canada and Morocco person made them look downright slow. And present they request to bushed 2018 finalists Croatia to advance.
Tunisia (4%, down from 32%). After an encouraging show successful a 0-0 gully with Denmark, Tunisia could person positioned themselves good to beforehand with a triumph implicit what seemed to beryllium an outmatched Australia. Instead, they mislaid to the Aussies contempt creating amended opportunities. Now they'll request to some upset France and anticipation that Denmark don't stroke retired Australia. That would beryllium rather the miracle.
Wales (5%, down from 32%). On May 2, 1984, astatine Wrexham's Racecourse Ground, Mark Hughes scored successful the 17th infinitesimal arsenic Wales took down Bobby Robson's England successful the last British Home Championship. That's the past clip they bushed their neighbors -- they've been outscored 11-1 successful six matches since -- and immoderate anticipation of advancing starts with ending that astir four-decade streak. They either request to bushed England and anticipation that Iran and the US gully oregon bushed England by four goals. Their chances apt ended with Iran's stoppage-time goals against them.
Biggest remaining matches successful the radical stage
Led by Saudi Arabia's upset of Argentina, we've seen immoderate genuinely shocking results implicit the archetypal week oregon truthful of the competition. While plentifulness of likewise chaotic results could shingle up the contention -- thing similar Wales blowing retired England, Cameroon upsetting Brazil oregon Japan knocking disconnected Spain -- determination are immoderate matches that we know volition beryllium peculiarly impactful.
Tuesday: Ecuador (71% accidental of advancing) vs. Senegal (30%). Ecuador would get done with a triumph oregon a draw, portion Senegal request a win.
Tuesday: Iran (58% accidental of advancing) vs. United States (38%). Unless Wales upset the pome cart with a daze triumph implicit England, Iran are done with a triumph oregon draw, and the US are done with a win.
1:58
Sam Borden updates with the latest from the USMNT campy successful Qatar, up of their crunch lucifer with Iran.
Wednesday: Denmark (51% accidental of advancing) vs. Australia (45%). Barring a Tunisia upset of France, Australia are done with a triumph oregon draw, and Denmark request a win. (Odds favour the Danes getting that win, but they haven't played astir arsenic good arsenic expected to date.)
Thursday: Croatia (76% accidental of advancing) vs. Belgium (33%). After 2 underwhelming performances, Belgium request a triumph (or a draw, combined with a Canada blowout of Morocco) to advance. Croatia conscionable request a gully (or assistance from Canada).
Friday: Switzerland (68% accidental of advancing) vs. Serbia (30%). Tied with Cameroon astatine 1 constituent (and with a worse extremity differential), Serbia request to bushed Switzerland and anticipation Cameroon don't propulsion a occurrence against Brazil. Sans said miracle, the Swiss conscionable request a draw.
Friday: Uruguay (49% accidental of advancing) vs. Ghana (42%). It's the 2010 World Cup quarterfinal rematch we've been waiting for, and it's got precocious stakes, too. While South Korea could muddy things up by beating Portugal to get to 4 points, a victor successful this one, beryllium it Ghana (three points) oregon Uruguay (one), would person fantabulous likelihood of advancing.
Awards watch
FIFA hands retired idiosyncratic awards aft the competition, including the Golden Ball (best player), Golden Boot (highest scorer), Golden Glove (best goalkeeper) and Young Player Award. Let's cheque connected however those competitions look to beryllium coming along.
Golden Ball
Of the 10 times the Golden Ball has been awarded, it has gone to a subordinate from 1 of the 2 finalists 8 times and to a semifinalist the different two. Based connected existent odds, then, it's astir apt to spell to a subordinate from Brazil (39% accidental to marque the finals, per FiveThirtyEight), France (27%) oregon Spain (23%). But portion we hold to spot however the knockout rounds instrumentality shape, let's usage this arsenic an excuse to interruption retired the nerd stats.
Here are the 10 players who person generated the astir combined expected goals (xG) and expected assists (xA) frankincense acold successful the competition, excluding penalties:
Kylian Mbappe, France (2.79)
Antoine Griezmann, France (2.51)
Olivier Giroud, France (2.16)
Enner Valencia, Ecuador (1.60)
Aleksandar Mitrovic, Serbia (1.48)
Robert Lewandowski, Poland (1.39)
Dani Olmo, Spain (1.24)
Jean-Charles Castelletto, Cameroon (1.19)
Sardar Azmoun, Iran (1.13, successful lone 81 minutes!)
Jonathan David, Canada (1.09)
Four of the 10 are from France oregon Spain, truthful propulsion successful Vinicius Junior (1.05) and Richarlison (0.99) of Brazil, and Lional Messi (0.56) due to the fact that he's Lionel Messi, and we've got ourselves a beauteous bully candidates list.
Golden Boot
Obviously, the Golden Boot is besides going to spell to a subordinate from a squad making a heavy tally -- much games equals much extremity opportunities -- but present are the 14 players who person scored astatine slightest doubly frankincense far, positive the fig of shots it has taken them to get there.
Three goals: Mbappe (13 shots); Valencia (7)
Two goals: Giroud (7); Cho Gue-Sung, South Korea (7); Messi (6); Bruno Fernandes, Portugal (6); Andrej Kramaric, Croatia (5); Richarlison (5); Mehdi Taremi, Iran (5); Alvaro Morata, Spain (5); Bukayo Saka, England (4); Ferran Torres, Spain (4); Mohammed Kudus, Ghana (4); Cody Gakpo, Netherlands (2)
This is simply a amusive premix of known stars (Mbappe, Messi, Fernandes) and entertaining stories. Unfortunately, the astir enjoyable communicative connected the database mightiness not marque it overmuch further successful the competition: portion Ecuador presently person a 71% accidental of advancing to the knockout stage, Valencia's presumption is uncertain aft helium suffered a sprained genu successful the gully with Netherlands.
Valencia's nine vocation has taken him from Ecuador (Emelec) to Mexico (Pachuca) to England (West Ham United and Everton), past backmost to Mexico (Tigres) and present Turkey (Fenerbahce), wherever helium has scored double-digit goals for 3 consecutive years. He's approaching 150 vocation nine goals, and helium has scored 38 successful 76 vocation planetary matches. He is the eventual grinder, and helium has travel up large for Ecuador.
Golden Glove
Three teams person yet to let a extremity successful this contention -- Poland, Morocco and Brazil -- but cleanable sheets don't needfully archer you whose goalkeeper has performed the best. Brazil's Alisson, for instance, has yet to look a changeable connected goal.
To gauge goalkeeper performance, then, let's usage different nerd stat: goals prevented, Stats Perform's look astatine the quality betwixt a keeper's goals allowed and the post-shot xG for opponents' shots connected target.
Wojciech Szczesny, Poland (+3.10 goals prevented)
Andries Noppert, Netherlands (+1.45)
Shuichi Gonda, Japan (+1.40)
Yann Sommer, Switzerland (+1.12)
Thibaut Courtois, Belgium (+0.92)
Mohammed Al Owais, Saudi Arabia (+0.85)
Unai Simon, Spain (0.76)
Matt Turner, United States (0.72)
Yassine Bounou, Morocco (0.63)
Wayne Hennessey, Wales (0.50)
Szczesny has faced shots connected people worthy 3.1 xG, including a punishment against Saudi Arabia and 3 shots attempted wrong 5 meters of the goal. That Poland person posted 2 cleanable sheets tells you a batch astir however good the Juventus keeper has done.
(If you're feeling mean and privation to cognize who has the lowest goals prevented fig to date, it's Costa Rica's Keylor Navas, astatine -2.42.)
Best Young Player
Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Michael Owen, Landon Donovan, Thomas Muller, Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappe person each won the FIFA Young Player Award. The barroom is beauteous precocious here, and frankincense acold rather a fewer 21-and-under players -- they indispensable person been calved aft Jan. 1, 2001 -- person cleared it.
Bukayo Saka, England. The 21-year-old Arsenal winger and reigning England men's subordinate of the twelvemonth scored doubly against Iran and has created a brace of chances arsenic well.
Jude Bellingham, England. Only 1 subordinate successful the tourney has a) completed astatine slightest 120 passes, b) scored astatine slightest 1 extremity and c) won astatine slightest 60% of his duels: the 19-year-old Borussia Dortmund midfielder and big-money people of each large Premier League team.
Gavi and Pedri, Spain. Pedri (20 years old) is the metronome that keeps clip for the Spanish onslaught -- helium has completed 93% of his 142 passes with a trio of chances created. Gavi (18), meanwhile, is the line-breaker and one-on-one feline who forces the contented astatine each times. They are going to beryllium making Spain a World Cup menace until astir 2034.
Jamal Musiala, Germany. The burgeoning Bayern Munich prima has gone from "this feline could beryllium unthinkable 1 day" to "is helium Germany's champion player?" successful weeks. Through 2 matches, helium leads the squad successful chances created, assists and shot recoveries, and helium has completed 30 of 33 passes wrong the attacking third.
Josko Gvardiol, Croatia. The RB Leipzig stalwart has won 64% of his duels and completed 88% of his passes for a Croatia squad that has allowed conscionable 1 extremity and shots worthy conscionable 0.8 xG done 2 matches.
Lee Kang-In, South Korea. The Mallorca winger has been a jolt of energy, attempting 4 shots and creating 4 chances with 1 assistance successful conscionable 48 minutes arsenic a substitute.
Non-Big Five Best XI
Two of the astir enjoyable aspects of immersing yourself successful the World Cup: the "who is that guy?" origin and the "oh right, that guy!" factor. Sometimes players you've ne'er heard of shine, arsenic bash guys who person possibly moved connected from the spotlight of Europe's Big Five leagues but are inactive plying their commercialized further down the ladder.
With that successful mind, here's a loosely assembled lineup of players from extracurricular the Big Five leagues who person played large shot frankincense acold successful Qatar.
Goalkeeper: Andries Noppert, Netherlands (Heerenveen). Louis van Gaal near immoderate bigger-name keepers astatine location (Jasper Cillessen, Tim Krul) and amazingly handed the reins to Noppert, who has responded beautifully.
Centre-backs: Romain Saiss, Morocco (Besiktas); Diego Godin, Uruguay (Velez Sarsfield). Saiss lone precocious became disposable for this squad (he played for Wolves until 2022-23), but the 32-year-old has been a large crushed for Morocco's back-to-back cleanable sheets. And portion Uruguay haven't gotten a ton from its seasoned attackers, the 36-year-old Godin has been an implicit rock. (Also, hooray to anyone who doesn't effort to screen up the information that they're balding.)
1:10
Julien Laurens explains his interest for Neymar aft seeing the latest pictures of his injured ankle.
Full-backs: Ramin Rezaeian, Iran (Sepahan); Josip Juranovic, Croatia (Celtic). Rezaeian was a revelation against Wales, not lone scoring but besides completing 26 passes and signaling 12 shot recoveries. He's among the squad leaders successful some categories, and helium didn't adjacent play successful the archetypal match! And with "Big Five" endowment each astir him, Juranovic has stood retired for Croatia; helium assisted the crippled victor against Canada, and helium has made 12 shot recoveries and completed a fig of passes into the attacking third.
Midfielders: Mohammed Kudus, Ghana (Ajax); Salem Al-Dawsari, Saudi Arabia (Al-Hilal). You mightiness cognize Kudus by now. The 22-year-old Ajax (for now) prima scored doubly successful Ghana's captious triumph implicit South Korea, and lone six players successful the tourney tin apical his 16 shot recoveries to date. But Al-Dawsari's crippled victor against Argentina has been possibly the biggest infinitesimal of the tourney to date. The 31-year-old has been the operator of astir everything bully Saudi Arabia person done done 2 matches.
Attacking midfielder: Cody Gakpo, Netherlands (PSV Eindhoven). Another rising prima astatine the nine level, the 23-year-old has gotten 2 looks astatine the extremity successful 2 matches, and helium buried both. The Dutch squad wide person produced a disappointing fig of chances, but they would beryllium acold worse disconnected without Gakpo successful the lineup.
Forwards: Enner Valencia, Ecuador (Fenerbahce); Cho Gue-Sung, South Korea (Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors). We've told Valencia's communicative by now, but let's speech astir Cho for a moment: a nine prima successful South Korea, the 24-year-old scored some goals successful the 3-2 thriller his state mislaid to Ghana connected Monday. With a mates much goals against Uruguay this coming Friday, helium inactive mightiness beryllium capable to assistance his squad advance.
English (US)