Even More World Cup Projections

Path Difficulty and Knockout Thresholds

Jun 15, 2026

I am biased but I think this is the coolest one of the Projections pages.

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Likely Thresholds for 3rd Place Knockouts Qualification

Based on the results of 100,000 simulations, the likelihood that a certain combination of points and goal difference will qualify a team for the World Cup knockout rounds.

For example, this shows that teams which end on 3 points with negative-2 goal difference reach the knockouts 58 percent of the time, but there is a 15 percent chance that their qualification is determined by a tie-breaker like goals scored or even fair play.

This chart has been updated from its original version to focus just on what is required to progress to the knockouts from 3rd place.

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Path Difficulty

Every team’s most likely opponents in the first two knockout rounds, and an estimate of how difficult their path to the quarterfinals will be compared to an average team’s path with the same seed.

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Third-Place Draw Projections

Of the group winners that will draw a third-place team as their round of 32 opponent, which teams are they mostly likely to draw?

Of the third-place teams that could qualify for the round of 32, which teams are their most likely first-round opponents?

Confederation Comparison

Pre-tournament projected points, actual points, and xPts per match for the five confederations with more than one team at this World Cup. This shows how well on average teams from each confederation have played relative to expectations. The “schedule” bar shows whether the opposition that teams from each confederation has faced have been stronger or weaker than the tournament average. Above 50 means stronger, below 50 means weaker.

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Data from Opta and Transfermarkt.

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