What we learned from the first 48-team World Cup

By Tom Hancock

A healthy element of surprise

There were understandable fears that increasing the number of teams in the World Cup from 32 (as had been the case since 1998) to 48 would dilute the quality of the competition and lead to major disparities between certain opposition. But did those fears come to pass?

One way to assess this is to look at how many upsets there were. To do this, we need to quantify what constitutes an upset – and while the FIFA World Ranking is not a perfect science, for ease of analysis, we’re classifying an upset as any instance of a team beating a side ranked 10 or more places above them.

Per the above, the 2026 World Cup produced seven upsets. Germany (ranked 10th at the start of the tournament) were on the receiving end of two of them, losing 2-1 to Ecuador (23rd) in their final group game (albeit having already clinched top spot) then, much more monumentally, 4-3 on penalties to Paraguay (41st) after a 1-1 draw in the last 32.

After Paraguay’s win over the Germans, Norway’s 2-1 last-16 victory against Brazil was statistically the most notable upset of the tournament as 31st in the world beat sixth.

But we’d be remiss not to take into account shock draws, too – and there was none more unexpected than 67th-ranked debutants Cape Verde (every neutral’s new favourite team) holding eventual winners Spain (2nd) to a 0-0 draw in their opening match. The Blue Sharks also picked up a point by drawing 2-2 against Uruguay (16th) and, most memorably of all, took holders, eventual runners-up and number one-ranked Argentina to extra time in last 32, eventually losing 3-2.

Special mentions must also go to Ghana (73rd), who drew 0-0 with fourth-ranked England (we did say the FIFA World Ranking wasn’t a perfect science), and Cape Verde’s fellow first-timers Curaçao, whose ranking of 82nd proved insignificant as they held Ecuador (23rd) to the same scoreline.

Including wins and draws, there were 25 upsets at the 2026 World Cup, working out at an average of one every 4.12 games – a slight drop-off from one every 3.55 games in 2022 and one every 3.76 games in 2018 but a marked increase on one every 7.11 games in 2014.

This year’s four World Cup debutants were the most since eight countries qualified for the first time in 2006. None of them managed to win a game, though it’s worth noting only one of the previous four tournament newcomers had done so: Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2014.

On the whole, there weren’t too many stark mismatches, with only six 11-vs-11 games being won by four goals or more – and only two by five goals or more: Germany 7-1 Curaçao and Portugal 5-0 Uzbekistan.

No goal difference – no great difference

For the first time since the previous World Cup in the USA in 1994 – which was also the last 24-team World Cup – finishing third in the group could be enough to advance to the knockout stage. In 1994, the four best third-placed finishers out of the six groups went through; this year, it was the best eight out of 12.

And with as few as three points being enough to progress (as Senegal found), there ought to have been greater jeopardy in the final round of group games. FIFA, however, changed the rules for 2026, using head-to-head record as the first tiebreaker rather than goal difference.

As such, five sides were eliminated with a game to spare: Haiti, Türkiye, Tunisia, Jordan and Panama – accounting for 10.41% of the total teams in the tournament, a 4.16% decrease from 2022, when only two countries were knocked out before the final round of group matches.

Go back to 2018, though, and it was a different story, with eight out of 32 teams (25%) crashing out after two games. In 2014, four out of 32 sides (12.5%) suffered the same fate.

The switch to separating teams on head-to-head record before goal difference didn’t have a dramatic impact as far as keeping things alive for the duration of the group stage, then.

Goals galore

The 2026 World Cup final may have come perilously close to being only the second goalless World Cup final ever, but goals were not at a premium during the tournament as a whole. With an average of 2.96 goals per game – up from 2.66 across each of the previous three editions combined – this was the highest-scoring World Cup since 1970.

We were treated to a whopping 22 games featuring five goals or more – one very 4.72 matches, meaning they came more frequently than at any World Cup since the expansion from 24 teams to 32 in 1998. 

On top of that, nine games saw more than five goals go in, culminating with England’s wild 6-4 win over France in the third-place play-off – the highest-scoring World Cup match since Hungary demolished El Salvador 10-1 in 1982.

There was also a welcome lack of stalemates. Just six of the 104 games at this World Cup finished 0-0 – fewer than at the 2022, 2014, 2010 and 2006 editions, all of which produced seven goalless draws.

That means less than 6% of this summer’s World Cup matches ended goalless, the second-lowest proportion since 1998 (the 2018 tournament produced a solitary 0-0 in 64 games).

FIFA’s decision to make the World Cup bigger than it had ever been was not universally popular, but it’s hard to argue the entertainment this summer’s tournament provided hasn’t vindicated that move.

Speaking ahead of the final, legendary former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger, who is now FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development, said: “That [expansion] was questioned before it started. We found that it was ethically needed to give a chance to everybody or to more teams to represent football. And, overall, I am convinced it was the right decision and it was a great success.”

Not long ago, talk of expanding the World Cup even further would have seemed absurd, but on the evidence of what we’ve seen over the last five weeks, it would certainly be worth a try. And could it happen as soon as the next edition in 2030?

“These are all issues that we will be examining after the World Cup,” Infantino told Swiss broadcaster Blue Sport when asked if the tournament could grow to 64 teams. “When organising a World Cup, it’s important to organise it for the whole world – not just Europe and South America but effectively the entire world. Every nation should be allowed to dream of participating in the World Cup.”

(Images from IMAGO)

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