2026 WC USA (et al): Worldwide Opponents Watch [all R's]

Few updates:

El Tri absolutely annihilated by Colombia in a friendly last night, 0-4. Underlying stats say the game was close to even, so I'm supposing Colombia's finishing was fabulous, and El Tri's was horrific (0.85 xG for Mexico, 0.95 for Colombia, shots, and sog's are similarly tight). So not sure what to take away from that.

CAF, my favorite region to look at, is mostly set in terms of group winners, and likely group winners, 2nd place rankings are the biggest deal for the most part, a quick break down.

Group A:EGYPT ADVANCES: Egypt's latest win locked up the group, Burkina Faso grabbed a tightly fought victory to stay in contention for a 2nd place playoff bid.

Group B: SENEGAL ABOUT 99% through: Technically this group is still competitive with DR Congo and Senegal both winning earlier this week, but Senegal would really have to step it in it on the final match day, so DR Congo will need to grab a win to essentially lock up a playoff slot. Both teams play weak sisters at home.

Group C: UP FOR GRABS, I've got South Africa to advance: After losing 3 points for fielding an ineligible player, I still figured South Africa was likely to advance, getting Rwanda at home, and Zimbabwe on the road. Benin would have to grab a result against Rwanda AND beat Nigeria away. Meanwhile Nigeria would grab 3 against Lesotho and then beat Benin to have any chance at a playoff. Instead, Benin barely found a goal late to extend their lead in match day 9, Nigeria was lucky to escape Lesotho with 3 points, Lesotho had numerous chances in the 2nd half to tie, and possibly beat Nigeria (seriously, wtf is wrong with Nigeria?!?!), and South Africa stepped on a banana peel struggling mightily to simply grab 1 point away at Zimbabwe. Despite everything, I think the most likely end result here, is South Africa, and Nigeria win at home on Matchday 10. The question is, will Nigeria grab enough goals to overtake Benin AND grab a 2nd place slot. My guess is NO on both counts, and neither make the playoff. Nigeria has won by 2 goals or more only once in 9 qualifiers, and a 2 goal victory would merely bring them in line with Benin, rather than overtake them, leading to the third tiebreaker, but in the end, I believe it's immaterial. CAF decided to exclude results against 6th place finishers, which basically pushes Benin and Nigeria out of contention for a 2nd place spot, although South Africa could still advance that way.
1. South Africa: 18 Points
2a. Benin: 17 Points
2b. Nigeria: 17 Points

Group D: Cape Verde about 90-95% through. Cape Verde stumbled badly away at Libya on Matchday 9, falling behind 3-1 before clawing back a draw and nearly pulling out a victory. Cameroon struggled until finding a breakthrough at home with 35 minutes left against Mauritius. That gave Cameroon a chance to overtake Cape Verde on match day 9, but their problem is, Cape Verde plays at home against the weakest side in the group, admittedly despite being so bad, Eswatini has kept games close (I don't think any losses by more than 2 goals) and on Matchday 9 should have beaten Angola, having taken a 2-0 lead to halftime before surrendering a pair of 2nd half goals to finish with only a draw. For the finale, Cape Verde has to beat Eswatini , as Cameroon owns the tiebreakers of GD and Total goals if they end up tied on points. With a win, Cameroon will grab a playoff spot.

Group E: Morocco takes the ticket. Morocco won the group rather easily, with a match left to play, they hold a 6 point lead over Niger who just wrapped with a win away at Zambia. I had hopes that Zambia could make another run a decade after their run for an AFCON title around the 20 year anniversary of their entire team being wiped out in a plane crash for WC '94 qualifying but it just wasn't to be. Zambia stunk, again. Niger made a sterling run, and technically could snag a playoff spot(with their campaign finished, they rank 2nd in the 2nd place rankings as of now), but to me, it will come down to Burkina Faso's result (playing Ethiopia at home), I tend to think Uganda (who can also overtake them) simply won't get the 3 points away to Algeria in a game that will be a celebration for Algeria over returning to the WC. Hard to see Algeria losing that, and very easy to see Burkina Faso beating Ethiopia at home with everything on the line. I think Niger's down unless some Burkina Faso guy grabs a red card, or they stun with a draw away.

Group F: Ivory Coast takes the tightly fought group: Gabon and Cape Verde are the two squads that take the prize for doing the best job of taking advantage of the expansion of the WC. While Cape Verde is a win away from a shocking WC appearance, and making the medal stand for smallest nations to ever qualify for WC, Gabon, a team that has seen its form rise and fall (for some reason I always link them and Gambia together as teams that periodically show potential only to fall off again), has risen to challenge Ivory Coast for group winner status (and still can with a win and an Ivory Coast loss or draw on match day 10). There's not a lot that is super impressive about their recent history besides taking AFCON '21 semifinalist to penalties in the Round of '16 of that tournament, qualifying and petering out otherwise for some AFCON's etc. So they picked a great time to plug in their best WC Qualifying performance I can remember. Unfortunately it's only good enough to guarantee a playoff ticket. However, a win against Burundi on Tuesday and a shock result for Ivory Coast vs Kenya would upend things, gifting Gabon a WC ticket. I don't see that happening.

Group G: Algeria takes the group. If Uganda could beat Algeria away on match day 10, they could potentially knock Niger out and grab a playoff ticket, but that would also require a Burkina Faso loss. I don't see that happening.

Group H: Tunisia grabs the ticket. I feel a bit bad for Namibia. I basically NEVER thought about Namibia at all. They seemed utterly irrelevant in CAF my entire life. However, they've now qualified for 2 of the past 3 AFCON's, and even made the knockouts of the last one, they did okay (2nd place) before crashing out of AFCON qualifying for WC '22, so it looks like a team kind of on the rise, but they just aren't at the level to qualify for the WC.

Group I: Ghana grabs the ticket. Madagascar could still take 1st place, but it would require them to beat Mali away and Ghana to lose at home in a clinching a WC ticket match. I just don't see either of those results happening. Indeed I think Madagascar will fall from a playoff slot in hand as of now, to the outside looking in after a draw or loss at Mali. However, if they can win, they are playoff round bound, so there is that. Mali definitely falls into the biggest disappointments bin of qualifying for this cycle, I thought they had a legit chance of winning the group or grabbing a playoff ticket, and instead Madagascar and tiny Comoros outplayed them in the group. Pretty nuts.

Your Qualifiers and likely Qualifiers:
Egypt
Senegal
South Africa
Cape Verde
Morocco
Ivory Coast
Algeria
Tunisia
Ghana

Your Playoff Qualifiers:
Gabon 19
Cameroon 17
DR Congo 16
Burkina Faso 15

I'm not sure if they will seed based on FIFA Rankings or total points, if it's Total points:
Burkina Faso vs Gabon

DR Congo vs Cameroon

Winners meet in final (then have to play in interconfed playoff)

If its seeding, I imagine it would be:
Cameroon vs Gabon
DR Congo vs Burkina Faso

Should be interesting. I love the region because of the Sub-Saharan African Fans, who for me, are generally speaking, easily my favorite fans WC to WC. Coming in dressed up, playing music and dancing all game. They bring so much joy and positive energy, so I'm excited at the possibility of 5 or 6 Sub Saharan African teams qualifying (Cape Verde is an Island, so a touch different). Can't wait to see how it plays out.

 

What do you mean? FIBA limits naturalized players to one per country. “Nothing they can do” well not saying they should but that’s literally a measure that already exists.

 

I have no problem with it either it’s easily within the bounds of the rules. But I think it’s going to mushroom out of control such that fifa would be wise to iterate on their rules.

 

Looking at CAF second place teams, if I have this right…Gabon and Burkina Faso have clinched playoff spots. Cameroon and Niger are currently in position and can be overtaken if DR Congo and Uganda win. Cameroon also has a match left to play so a win guarantees their spot.

 

Yeah, I think looking at them, its pretty obvious that DR Congo and Cameroon, are locked in. Worth noting, that after a WPIOTBGW moment went against Burkina Faso, we could have witnessed those fans burning down that freaking stadium. They had just scored to go up 2-0 and had locked up a playoff spot, only to give up the stupidest ever playing it out the back goal you could imagine, so incomprehensibly stupid, and had to sweat out the next 10 mins before scoring a 3rd to put the game away. I think the fans would have burnt that stadium to the ground if an equalizer had arrived for Ethiopia and just become baseball fans instead.

I'll be pretty surprised if Niger manages to hold onto its playoff ticket. DR Congo is at home and playing an inferior side. They should be fine, and earn the last of the tickets along with Cameroon. I think Nigeria is screwed, they will need to beat Benin, and have South Africa choke, to get to the WC. They can do the former, but I don't think South Africa is likely to choke that way.

 

THe October window has concluded in Europe for Groups C, G, H, and L.

Group C: Denmark and Scotland have clinched the top 2 spots already. They're tied on points with Denmark having a pretty big goal differential edge that'll likely get bigger on the next matchday. Scotland hosts Denmark on the final matchday but before that Denmark hosts Belarus and Scotland travels to Greece. If you assume Denmark wins, Scotland just needs to get something on the road against Greece, whether it's a win or a draw is largely immaterial, they just can't lose to stay alive for the direct spot. If they get that result they'll be faced with a win and in situation on the final day against Denmark.

Group G: Finland still technically alive but Poland and The Netherlands have effectively clinched the top 2 spots and in all likelihood The Dutch will win the group. Poland host The Dutch at home in the next window and would pull level with them on points with a win but The Dutch currently hold a +13 goal differential edge. If The Dutch win in Poland they'll clinch, if they tie in Poland they'll effectively clinch, and even if they lose in Poland they'd only need to beat Lithuania on the final matchday to win the group. Poland would need to win at home against The Netherlands, handle Malta away on the final matchday and then hope Lithuania pulls a shocking result. Finland is on deaths door, they need to beat Malta (which they should) and then pray Poland loses to both Netherlands and Malta, while also making up an 11 goal differential hole.

Group H: Romania getting a 95 minute winner to beat Austria yesterday kept this group a little interesting. Austria has 15 points, Bosnia has 13 and Romania has 10. On the next matchday Austria travels to Cyprus while Bosnia hosts Romania and in the final matchday Austria hosts Bosnia while Romania host San Marino. Austria will clinch if they get an away win at Cyrpus and Bosnia drops points at home. If they tie Cyprus away and Bosnia wins they'd only need a point at home in the final match. Bosnia will clinch a playoff spot if they handle Romania at home, and could clinch a direct spot if they also get a result away to Austria (depending on what happens in Cyprus they'd need a win or draw). If Romania can pull off an away victory against Bosnia they'd likely be headed to the playoff at the very least, and if they get a draw well they'd need Austria to handle Bosnia at home in which case they'd only need to beat San Marino by 3 goals at home. If they lose to Bosnia though, they're done. The fun meltdown scenario in this group is Austria loses to Cyprus, Romania beats Bosnia, and then Bosnia stuns Austria away while Romania handles San Marino, that would put Austria from 1st to 3rd.

Group L: Croatia was already very likely in, and The Czechs losing to Faroe Islands yesterday essentially sealed it. Croatia will win this group with just a single point against either Faroe Islands at home or Montenegro away and even in the unthinkable scenario where they lose both, The Czechs would have a 15 goal differential deficit to make up. Faroe Islands have had a fun little run in this tournament and could briefly move into that 2nd place spot if they stun Croatia, but that's already a massive longshot, and even if they did it they'd need Gibraltar to get a result off The Czechs on the final day. The Czechs will be the playoff team in this group, but a really nice showing from the country with less than 55,000 people




Big one today in Africa is Cape Verde Islands who have a golden chance to qualify for their first ever World Cup and they just need to beat Eswatini at home and are a -850 favorite to do so. In the event they screw that up they would have a chance to bailed out if Angola could steal a result away against Cameroon, but it really shouldn't be coming down to that. I hope they can do it!

 

Just checked with the CAF playoff set up and they use FIFA rankings as expected for seeding.

Currently going into the last two matchdays we have:
1. Cameroon: 1 game in hand, 14 Points, FIFA Ranking of 52
2. DR Congo: 1 game in hand, 13 Points, FIFA Ranking of 60
3. Burkina Faso: group stage completed, 15 points, FIFA Ranking of 64
4. Gabon: 1 game in hand 16 points, FIFA Ranking of 79
5. Niger: Group Stage completed, 15 points, FIFA ranking of 117

Anything can happen, but with Cameroon, Gabon and DR Congo playing weaker sisters at home, I think Gabon is basically locked into a playoff spot, and if Cameroon ties or wins, and if DR Congo wins, they are in. I tend to think Niger falls out, and I think their only chance of survivla is really DR Congo or Cameroon stepping on a banana peel which I don't see happening.

Based on the FIFA rankings, that would give us a playoff tournament for 1 ticket of:

Cameroon vs Gabon
DR Congo vs Burkina Faso

Winners play for a ticket to the interconfederation tournament.

AFC is kind of interesting:
Winners of UAE @ Qatar on Tuesday goes straight to WC, loser plays the Second Place team from Group B (unless the loser finishes with a worse GD than Oman's -1), in which the winner of Iraq @ Saudi Arabia will go straight to the World Cup and the loser will play in that runner up game.

It's a funny situation because I think UAE and Iraq are the better sides, but the hosts are their opponents (Qatar and the Saudi's), so they'll have to overcome hostile stadiums to win. It is worth noting a quality striker for Saudi Arabia is out due to a red card.

 

Pretty insane winds in The Cape Verde islands right now and their swinging hopeful crosses strategy isn't working.

0-0 there. Angola is saving them at the moment as they're also scoreless with Cameroon. Really shouldn't be coming to that for Cape Verde though

 

Cape Verde jumps ahead 1-0 off a corner, while Eswatini was a man down in the moment as well. Great for them. Now they need to add another.

 

Cape Verde finally break through. On the doorstep of becoming the 2nd smallest country to ever qualify

 

Moments later Cape Verde hits the cross bar with a beautifully fired shot from distance, just a few inches too high, or it's 2-0 Cape Verde instead of 1-0 (actually Goalkeeper got fingertips too it, or it's 2-0). Weird sound issues lol in the feed. Sounds like some evil devil dude whispering underneath the announcers lol.

Oh and now they find a 2nd goal off a cross into the box, and a ball deflects to a waiting Cape Verde player. They are dancing in the stands now, celebrating. 40 minutes to salt away.

 

Willie Saneda jumped into the stands to celebrate with fans after the goal. So great watching this. Cape Verde are Volcanic Islands off the west coast of Sub-Saharan Africa, with a population that fluctuates between about 300,000 and 550,000.

 

Wow, Angola came within a whisker of taking the lead by 1 goal, which would not Cameroon out entirely. Still 0-0 there with only about 23 mins left. I think Cameroon while not 100% safe, is probably safe with a draw, but if they lose to Angola, that's almost certainly a wrap if DR Congo wins against the lesser side they're taking on tomorrow (Sudan). Apparently the Angolan Keeper is having a masterclass to keep it at 0-0.

 

Angola hit the cross bar for a second time just now, inches preventing Cameroon from falling entirely out of contention for the most part. 0-0 in Cameroon, 2-0 still Cabo Verde with 10 minutes left in regulation.

 

Cabo Verde, if there was any question left, they get a third late, a veteran player who was apparently brought on as a nod to having been a part of building the program (Stopira debuted for the team in 2008) at 37 years old, and then he is the guy who confirms qualification. 3-0 Cabo Verde, 2nd smallest nation ever to qualify (after Iceland in '18).

FTR, this is why I've been okay with 48. Nations like Cabo Verde were largely locked out of World Cups, tiny, and having to make it through the daunting CAF qualification process (in many ways, the toughest of campaigns historically since usually noone other than group winners could qualify). Cabo Verde gets to experience the WC. Their fans and players, it's amazing thing. Very happy for them, for Uzbekistan, and the other debutants we will see, as well as some teams, possibly Iraq, who will qualify after having been missing for decades. It's worth it, to me anyway.

 

Cameroon ended up drawing Angola. Pretty stunningly unclutch.

One would think Cameroon would be the favorites to grab the ticket to the inter-confederation playoff, but I can't help but think w/their awful form, there's no reason at all that Burkina Faso, Gabon, or likely qualifier DR Congo wouldn't beat them anyway.

That semifinal, and final round for the playoff ticket next March will take place a month from now on November 13th, and the Final on November 16th.

Assuming nothing too weird happens, it will be:
Cameroon vs Gabon
DR Congo vs Burkina Faso

Morocco will host the matches.

 

It seems the expanded number of teams is letting in some VERY weak teams.
Cape Verde qualify for World Cup
https://www.skysports.com/football/...frican-nation-reach-tournament-for-first-time
This makes the group stage of the WC almost meaningless for teams that are any good at all.

 

We had weak teams in the tournament before the expansion, so i don't see the problem

 

It is the number of bad teams that make the group stage meaningless. Also it increases the injury probability for important players as the more really bad teams you play the probability of injury from dirty play or accidentally bad contact. The injury rate is already high enough without the extra exposure to truly bad teams that increase the injuries a lot.

 

If I had to quibble with the expansion, it wouldn't be the number of teams. I don't think a 48 team tournament will mean too many poor teams in. (And Cape Verde qualified above Cameroon, so...) But I do think they could have done a better job of structuring how teams move from groups to the knockouts.

There's not a perfect way w/ 48, but advancing 24 (the top 2 from each group and giving the top 8 teams in the field a bye) instead of 32 would make for a more competitive group stage and would make for a more exciting final round of games on match day 3 of the groups. The last few WCups, those games have been some of the most fun days of the tournament. I don;t see how that will be the case this go around.

 

The league makeup of Cape Verde's Starting XI was

Portuguese Top Tier: 2 (1 of which played in Serie A last year)

Portuguese 2nd tier: 2 (1 of which was in the top flight last season but got relegated)

Eredivisie: 1 (he also used to play in MLS for San Jose and Philly)

Turkish Super Lig: 1 (and he also spent 5 years with Lille in Ligue 1)

Russian Premier League: 1 (and it's for the defending champs)

MLS: 1

UAE: 1

Cyprus: 1 (and it's for Omonia, a club that frequently plays in European competition)

Romania: 1



It's certainly not mouth watering, but it's not the 1960's anymore, there's loads of countries that field fully professional teams and have players playing in high level leagues. It seems a tad offensive to suggest these guys can't safely make a tackle lol, bigger teams face similar level of competition in qualifiers all the time.

 

When you look around at practice and see other guys who can play, it raises the confidence level of everyone. Then all it takes is a win or two and you’re off to the races.

 

Yea, I'm sure someone could look up Costa Rica's roster when they topped a group filled with Uruguay, Italy and England.

Probably looks similar to this Cape Verde team. Its free to dream.

 

Cape Verde actually makes it far more meaningful, as is all the changes.

It's also worth noting that this set up is actually, I don't know, a WORLD CUP, rather than the set up we saw for the first half century plus of the World Cup which was largely a glorified Euro Championship+Conmebol Tournament (9-10 UEFA tickets, 3-4 Conmebol ticks, and typically 10 for the rest of the entire world (Asia, Africa, Oceania, North America, Central America, and the Caribbean). Up until 1998, UEFA was getting 9-10 of 24 tickets, after it was expanded to 32 UEFA actually upped their percentage of slots to nearly 45% when hosting, and around 40% when not hosting. That was never actually a World Cup, and the new set up addresses this by providing more representation to the massive continent that is Africa (damn the mercator!), as well as Asia, Oceania, and our very own Concacrap.

Will some crappier teams slip in? Yep. But that was happening already, no matter what, periodically weak punching bags would arrive like Honduras, or Panama, or Saudi Arabia in '02 etc, and the evidence of more recent tournaments is that every confederation generally speaking has begun to close the the gap, not in the sense of being consistently competitive with the world powers, but rather in being legit challenges.

I also think its a beautiful thing to see the tournament opened to people around the world that have never dreamed this was possible, in Uzbekistan, Jordan, Cape Verde, maybe Burkina Faso or DR Congo, I had hoped Venezuela but they collapsed down the stretch. I could go on, but the reality is, yes, the tournament got watered down a little bit, but also was a genuine step in the direction of making this a celebration of the World's game, and not just Europe and South America's game (and lately, Asia's). Additionally, by and large, what this means is that most of the powers that sometimes could slip up from time to time probably won't (I'm talking about Netherlands, Germany, Colombia, maybe Italy if they can get their act together too, all of whom have missed 1 or more of the past two tournaments).

If you actually look at the likely pots, they look as fearsome as ever, just different, and larger....

Pot 1 (I'm assuming all 3 hosts are pot 1):
USA
Mexico
Canada
Spain
France
Argentina
England
Portugal
Brazil
Netherlands
Croatia
Belgium

Pot 2:
Morocco
Germany
Colombia
Uruguay
Switzerland (at risk)
Senegal
Japan
Denmark
Iran
South Korea
Ecuador
Austria

Pot 3:
Australia
Turkey
Ukraine
Panama
Norway (we get to see Haaland!)
Egypt
Paraguay
Algeria
Ivory Coast
Tunisia
11
12

Pot 4:
Costa Rica
South Africa
CAF Inter Confederation Winner?
Uzbekistan
Maybe Asia Inter Confed Winner?
Jordan
Cape Verde
Ghana
New Zealand
Honduras


Not quite sure whose gonna fill out about 4 or 5 slots in Pot 3 and Pot 4, but when I look at the most likely qualifiers, there simply aren't many teams that look likely to get smashed and humiliated. There are some, to be sure, but so what? There are more than enough good teams to fill out the bulk of Pot 3 and a good chunk of Pot 4 with solid legit teams. It isn't going to be cake to get out of the group stage for most teams, it will be challenging, and best of all, it will be representative of a genuine world tournament, with every continent able to cheer on a strong collection of teams, rather than a tiny handful while watching Europe drag more than a dozen as per usual.

It's also worth noting, that the days of powerhouse horror show groups ended with FIFA's acquiescence in 2018 to seeding the entire collection of teams rather than only the top 8, so as a result, groups of life and groups of death largely became a thing of the past (though FIFA's idiotic rankings ensure that groups will always be at least a bit uneven).

 

Cape Verde is awesome. What a story just enjoy it.