http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminaries/statistics/index.html says 304 out of 851 games have been played, meaning 547 are left. I looked at the qualifying formats on Wikipedia and got 540 games left which I will list below. Can anybody explain the discrepancy of 7 games? AFC: 76 14 games to end Round 2 (assuming Kuwait doesn't play any more) 60 games in Round 3 (2 groups of 6 with 30 games each) 2 games in Round 4 (the playoff between the third place teams) OFC: 29 12 games in Oceania Nations Cup (Round 2) Group Stage (2 groups of 4 where you play each opponent once) 3 games in Oceania Nations Cup knockout rounds (2 Semifinals and 1 Final, although all of these teams advance in World Cup 2018 Qualifying) 12 games in Round 3 (2 groups of 3 with 6 games each) 2 games in Round 4 (the playoff between the group winners) CONMEBOL: 65 13 matchdays with 5 games each CONCACAF: 48 18 Semifinal games (3 matchdays with 6 games each) 30 Hexagonal games (1 group of 6) CAF: 60 60 Round 3 games (5 groups of 4 with 12 games each) UEFA: 258 250 Group Stage (Round 1) games (7 groups of 6 with 30 games each and 2 groups of 5 with 20 games each) 8 Playoff (Round 2) games (4 two leg series) Interconfederational Playoff: 4 2 two leg series I also added the amount of games played so far to be 309, not 304 like FIFA said. Here's my explanation: CONCACAF: 64 46 games in Rounds 1 through 3 (23 two leg series) 18 Semifinal games) CONMEBOL: 25 5 matchdays with 5 games each OFC: 6 1 group of 4 where you played every opponent once AFC: 148 12 games in Round 1 (6 two leg series) 136 games in Round 2 (I added up each team's games played total) CAF: 66 33 two leg series in Rounds 1 and 2 Obviously UEFA and the interconfederational playoffs haven't started. Can anybody explain this discrepancy?
First, I have 852 games (OceaniaFootball lists a 3rd/4th play-off in PNG so we'll ignore that) AFC - Played 148 (12+136) - Left 78 (16+60+2) - I'm pretty sure it is unsafe to exclude Kuwait's matches (and that the article won't have) as nothing is official. OFC - Played 6 - Left 29 (12+2+1+12+2) (same as above with the caveat on the 3rd/4th play-off) Conmebol - Played 25 - Left 65 (same as above) Concacaf - Played 64 (14-20-12-18-0) Left 48 (18-30) (same as above) CAF - Played 66 (26+40) - Left 60 (as above) UEFA - Played 0 - Left 258 (250+8) (as above) Play-offs - Played 0 - Left 4 (as above) Total - Played 309 - Left 542 At a guess the most likely explanation for the discrepancy is: 1) Don't exclude Kuwait (yet) 2) They forgot a round of South America (given it's a five game gap, it probably easy to do) J