2026 World Cup Group Stage Predictions:

South Africa to me is just meh. At least in the matches I have seen them play recently. I think Czechia will beat them. Maybe not blow them out but I favor them to get the 3 points.

Sweden is what I call white bread. They are not great but they are not bad. I think they will not get last in that Group but they could. I think they could get points against anyone in their group too.
Wouldn't shock me.

 

Interesting I found this online in regards to respective squads for the world cup and their average age. Not sure if this is based on the last window, I believe so.

Here’s the ranking:

1. Morocco — 25.2

2. Tunisia — 25.5

3. Côte d’Ivoire — 25.8

4. Ecuador — 25.9

5. Algeria — 25.9




6. United States — 26.3

7. Japan — 26.4

8. Sweden — 26.4

9. Canada — 26.5

10. Belgium — 26.5

11. Iraq — 26.5

12. Spain — 26.6

13. Ghana — 26.7

14. South Africa — 26.8

15. Senegal — 26.8

16. Bosnia and Herzegovina — 26.9

17. France — 26.9

18. Brazil — 27.0

19. Netherlands — 27.0

20. Norway — 27.0

21. Jordan — 27.0

22. Portugal — 27.0

23. Australia — 27.1

24. England — 27.2

25. New Zealand — 27.5

26. Turkey — 27.7

27. Haiti — 27.7

28. Mexico — 27.8

29. Qatar — 27.8

30. Uzbekistan — 27.8

31. Switzerland — 27.9

32. Curaçao — 27.9

33. Saudi Arabia — 27.9

34. Germany — 28.0

35. Argentina — 28.0

36. South Korea — 28.1

37. Czech Republic — 28.1

38. Croatia — 28.2

39. Austria — 28.3

40. Cape Verde — 28.4

41. Uruguay — 28.4

42. DR Congo — 28.4

43. Scotland — 28.6 44. Paraguay — 28.8

45. Egypt — 29.0

46. Iran — 29.3

47. Panama — 29.6

48. Colombia — 29.7

 

25-30 isn't much of a large difference for an overall squad.

It would be more interesting and meaningful to see the average age of starting lineups, rather than entire squads.

 

All of Colombia’s Keepers are over 30 and two were closer to 40 which does not help the averages last window.

 

Keepers are usually the position with the oldest players across the board. Plus thats 3 players out of 23-26. I dont think you can blame this for Colombias high average age.

 

I am just saying it is probably the main reason why we are last with two guys close to 40.

 

I don't know if that group is as easy to predict as people are saying. Morocco was great last WC in matches where all the pressure was on the other team, and it helped that 2 big names they faced - Belgium & Spain - were past their peak and clinging on to too many formerly great players. Portugal and Croatia also fitted that description a bit too. Morocco could just sit in and be fine with 25% possession. The games against Scotland and Haiti will be a totally different proposition.

 

there are few groups where the third team has tiny chance (at best) to have more than three points with negative goal difference … you can‘t get thru that way

 

I think the Morocco possession stats for 2022 are usually interpreted a bit out of context.

1st of all Portugal, Spain, Croatia were literally 3 of the best possession based sides in World football in 2022.

Morocco were only close to 25% against Portugal and Spain. Consider that against Portugal they were 1 up by halftime, so that's an entire half of DEFENDING a lead against one of the top possession based sides in the world.

Against Croatia where neither team lead it was 60/40 for Croatia. Again one of the top posession midfields in the world.

Belgium was 65/35 but chased the match for the final 20 minutes which again screws the statistics.

Morocco went down early to France in the semis and dominated posession 60/40 in that match.

My point is that Morocco is a strong posession based side. They were just up against the cream of the crop in that regard in nearly all of their world cup matches, and they employed a smart strategy to overcome that.

Yes the pressure will be entirely on them to beat Haiti and Scotland, and that would be similar to their 2-1 win against Canada in 2022.

 

Two-thirds of the second place teams advance, so there could be a team or two that looks bad but advances.

I made a note to compare how FIFA and ELO do at predicting. If all games had winners, I would check whether each ranking was right or wrong about each game. Since there are draws, I will evaluate the Group Stage by rankings. I have not decided how I will evaluate it yet. The best prediction is the right order like 1-2-3-4. The next best is switching two consecutive teams as 2-1-3-4, 1-3-2-4, or 1-2-4-3. For the Knockout Rounds, I will grade each ranking as right or wrong. I will use the rankings before the World Cup for the whole World Cup. The FIFA Rankings move slowly, and I think people expect ELO to be better at predicting.

 

Egypt's a defensively oriented collection of mediocrities with a former star whose now old and another real nice player (maybe I'm missing someone, but from what I can tell, it's a team of meh, with a couple of superlative talents who are no longer young). They're path to the WC is largely cake because of their AFCON performances and recent decent WC qualifying campaigns keeping them a 1 seed, as such, like the rest of the 1 seeds, so long as they can afford the powers that slip to Pot 2, the road to the WC is cake, especially with the added slots....Egypt's competition for the WC ticket was basically a home and home with Burkina Faso. So long as they collected 4 points from that, which they did, they just needed to curb stomp the rest of the pathetic group, and they did that, to the greatness that is Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia (briefly not sucky from 2020-2022, now sucky again), and Djibouti.

Qualification was cake. What annoys me is that I was hoping the interesting happy stories like Cape Verde, or the interesting strong teams like Ivory Coast and Senegal and Morocco, would grab the cake group, instead it was this pretty weak sauce Egypt side that drew absolute dross from the other weak Pot's (Iran and New Zealand). With only 1 quality team in their group, they'll be favored to advance, but it won't be because they're any good, it will be due to an exceptionally fortunate draw. I actually think Iran are better, but I don't know if Iran is even coming so.....if they advance, they probably draw USA or Turkey (or whomever else finishes 2nd in a pretty even Group D).

 

I think they're better than Iran (who has for the most part declined significantly in respect to 20222), but basically, yeah, that's kinda how I view them. I have them below Morocco, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Algeria (maybe even DR Congo if they reinforce themselves with more Euro players, and if they had qualified, Nigeria as well) when it comes to pure talent.

 

Group A:
1. South Korea
2. Czech Republic
3. Mexico
4. South Africa

For a while there I thought South Africa would put up a pretty good fight, they did well in their '22 WC qualifying campaign, failing to get to the final stage of qualifying due to some pretty egregious home town cooking gifting Ghana a PK they needed to advance to the final round, this cycle they got the job done too managing to hold off a Nigerian fight back (after Nigeria started their campaign in god awful form). Alas, little we've seen since is all that impressive. Recent friendlies are largely yuck to neutral at best.

So why do I have El Tri third? A couple of reasons: #1 Fortress Azteca aint what it used to be. El Tri hasn't beaten the US there in qualifying since the 2010 WC cycle and that required Donovan to lose his man in part due to swine flu lol at the time (he was sick for the game, later figured out his stamina issues were related to that pandemic), draws in '14, '18 and '22 are pretty telling, in '22 Canada, Costa Rica, and the US all held them at Azteca as well, in '18 of course they were better, only struggling with the US, back in '14 it was the worst of all, they had 4 draws and 1 win at home.....so? I'm not really buying. If people want to know why, its all guess work, but generally speaking I think it comes down to El Tri having a lot fewer players used to playing at elevation in Mexico, (plying their trade in Europe circa 2012-2022, the last five years or so they've onshored a bunch of said players, so that might help), supposedly they've also made modernization moves that actually had the negative impact of making it less intimidating, and the smog issues were simply worse in the 70s, 80s, and 90s than they've been the last 15-20 years. I don't know the answer, I just know that El Tri rarely ever dropped 2 points at home in WCQ's in the more distant pass, but at this point they've dropped games repeatedly in 2 of the past 3 cycles....so I am not sold home field advantage matters. Beyond that, most El Tri fans will own, the development program has gotten quite plugged up the last decade which is part of the reason they've dropped their anti-dual nat approached, and aggressively fought to win over Mexican-American dual nats, born, raised and trained up in the US like Vargas, Ledezma, Araujo etc, it does kinda seem like some kids are bubbling up again, but considering most of the exciting ones are 15-18, the concern is they will flat line like the rest did the past decade (in general El Tri has continued to produce plenty of interesting young teenage players (aged 14-17), but the sputtering has actually occured as these kids made the last stage of development transition to pro's aged 18-21, so maybe they've corrected some problems, maybe not.

Forgive the longwindedness, but being a Concacaf, USMNT supporter, this is one area I feel more informed. I think the new coaching staff has improved El Tri performance since they slowly imploded '21-'24 at the senior level, but I'm also somewhat skeptical, especially w/the rash of injuries they've had, that it can carry over to the WC. We just don't really know. They looked alright in winning their first NL title in '25, while the US stepped on an inexplicable rake, and managed to barely beat a US B/C team in the Gold Cup Final this past summer, so there's that, but you look at the results and things are really uneven.

GC Semifinal and Final they struggled with meh Honduran and US Sides
Friendlies in September: attack struggled with Japan, okay against South Korea
Friendlies in October: Horror show defeat 0-4 defeat to Colombia, before righting the ship with a 1-1 draw with Ecuador
Friendlies in November: Toothless foul fest ugly 0-0 draw with Uruguay, 1-2 defeat to Paraguay.
March Friendlies: Unlike the US, they actually were reasonably good in drawing Portugal and Belgium.

So for me, I'm trying to figure out if their attack will wake up for the WC, or slumber some more? Will South Korea's up and down form hit an up? And the Czech's? I didn't expect the Czech's at all in the WC, they lost to Portugal and Turkey at the '24 Euro's, tied Georgia, and in WCQ they squeezed out a playoff slot in the weakest group in all of UEFA Qualifying (Croatia, Faroe Islands, Montenegro and Gibraltar were their opponents), but they did manage to beat a wildly underperforming, choking Denmark side.

So who takes Group A? Uneven South Korea? An El Tri side that definitely isn't close to the '86, '94-'18 iterations, or a Czech sides that's basically been on a downhill slide since Euro '04?

I can see any of the 3 winning this group. If El Tri is on form, and they are well coached now, they should take it, but if they continue to struggle in the attack, I think South Korea has the advantage. I have given up trying to understand the Czech's, I have no idea if they are improving or just getting by weak and underperforming opponents.

 

Quite the take.
As someone who adamantly roots against Mexico in every tournament imaginable I would be grinning from ear to ear if they finish third.
I think it is highly unlikely though.

 

Crazy long winded projections, I bold the teams I think have the best chance of advancing 1st, 2nd or as 3rd place teams....

Group A:
1. South Korea
2. Czech Republic
3. Mexico
4. South Africa

For a while there I thought South Africa would put up a pretty good fight, they did well in their '22 WC qualifying campaign, failing to get to the final stage of qualifying due to some pretty egregious home town cooking gifting Ghana a PK they needed to advance to the final round, this cycle they got the job done too managing to hold off a Nigerian fight back (after Nigeria started their campaign in god awful form). Alas, little we've seen since is all that impressive. Recent friendlies are largely yuck to neutral at best.

So why do I have El Tri third? A couple of reasons: #1 Fortress Azteca aint what it used to be. El Tri hasn't beaten the US there in qualifying since the 2010 WC cycle and that required Donovan to lose his man in part due to swine flu lol at the time (he was sick for the game, later figured out his stamina issues were related to that pandemic), draws in '14, '18 and '22 are pretty telling, in '22 Canada, Costa Rica, and the US all held them at Azteca as well, in '18 of course they were better, only struggling with the US, back in '14 it was the worst of all, they had 4 draws and 1 win at home.....so? I'm not really buying. If people want to know why, its all guess work, but generally speaking I think it comes down to El Tri having a lot fewer players used to playing at elevation in Mexico, (plying their trade in Europe circa 2012-2022, the last five years or so they've onshored a bunch of said players, so that might help), supposedly they've also made modernization moves that actually had the negative impact of making it less intimidating, and the smog issues were simply worse in the 70s, 80s, and 90s than they've been the last 15-20 years. I don't know the answer, I just know that El Tri rarely ever dropped 2 points at home in WCQ's in the more distant pass, but at this point they've dropped games repeatedly in 2 of the past 3 cycles....so I am not sold home field advantage matters. Beyond that, most El Tri fans will own, the development program has gotten quite plugged up the last decade which is part of the reason they've dropped their anti-dual nat approached, and aggressively fought to win over Mexican-American dual nats, born, raised and trained up in the US like Vargas, Ledezma, Araujo etc, it does kinda seem like some kids are bubbling up again, but considering most of the exciting ones are 15-18, the concern is they will flat line like the rest did the past decade (in general El Tri has continued to produce plenty of interesting young teenage players (aged 14-17), but the sputtering has actually occured as these kids made the last stage of development transition to pro's aged 18-21, so maybe they've corrected some problems, maybe not.

Forgive the longwindedness, but being a Concacaf, USMNT supporter, this is one area I feel more informed. I think the new coaching staff has improved El Tri performance since they slowly imploded '21-'24 at the senior level, but I'm also somewhat skeptical, especially w/the rash of injuries they've had, that it can carry over to the WC. We just don't really know. They looked alright in winning their first NL title in '25, while the US stepped on an inexplicable rake, and managed to barely beat a US B/C team in the Gold Cup Final this past summer, so there's that, but you look at the results and things are really uneven.

GC Semifinal and Final they struggled with meh Honduran and US Sides
Friendlies in September: attack struggled with Japan, okay against South Korea
Friendlies in October: Horror show defeat 0-4 defeat to Colombia, before righting the ship with a 1-1 draw with Ecuador
Friendlies in November: Toothless foul fest ugly 0-0 draw with Uruguay, 1-2 defeat to Paraguay.
March Friendlies: Unlike the US, they actually were reasonably good in drawing Portugal and Belgium.

So for me, I'm trying to figure out if their attack will wake up for the WC, or slumber some more? Will South Korea's up and down form hit an up? And the Czech's? I didn't expect the Czech's at all in the WC, they lost to Portugal and Turkey at the '24 Euro's, tied Georgia, and in WCQ they squeezed out a playoff slot in the weakest group in all of UEFA Qualifying (Croatia, Faroe Islands, Montenegro and Gibraltar were their opponents), but they did manage to beat a wildly underperforming, choking Denmark side.

So who takes Group A? Uneven South Korea? An El Tri side that definitely isn't close to the '86, '94-'18 iterations, or a Czech sides that's basically been on a downhill slide since Euro '04?

I can see any of the 3 winning this group. If El Tri is on form, and they are well coached now, they should take it, but if they continue to struggle in the attack, I think South Korea has the advantage. I have given up trying to understand the Czech's, I have no idea if they are improving or just getting by weak and underperforming opponents.

Group B:
1.Switzerland
2.Canada
3.Bosnia
4. Qatar

Qatar, like the Saudi's, should not even be here. I cannot believe the rest of the AFC didn't ixnay their ability to host the direct playoff for the last tickets to the WC via AFC Qualifying. That was absolutely nuts. I do not think they would have advanced w/o the hosting duty (same with the Saudi's). They will get pulverized. So it comes down to Bosnia, a feel good story, but not a team I expect to trump Canada at home barring a red card.

I think the Swiss are probably just too sound and too good to lose that match to Canada. So I have them winning, but Canada on their day can be lethal, so we'll just have to see. I do think the fact that this match is likely to determine the group, and that it's the group stage finale adds some interest to it. We'll see both teams trying to grab 1st, not a situation where either is likely to be just trying to avoid yellow cards and injuries, so it should be pretty exciting.

Group C:
1.Brazil
2.Morocco
3.Scotland
4.Haiti

Brazil had a pretty disappointing WC campaign, but it's impossible to look at that pool and imagine them not taking the group. Morocco, just color me not so impressed. They were pretty weak at the AFCON, gifted a Semifinal win over the Nigeria thanks to the refs, and nearly so against Senegal, before they got the fed to hand it to them. It's patently obvious that not only was rigging/bias involved, but that they were actively cheating in the match (the messing w/the Senegal goalie alone was just brutal, carried out by both teammates, and ball boys)...so yeah, the feel good story from 2022 is over, and I will enjoy Brazil beating them. Otoh, the rest of the group draw was/is cake. I don't buy Scotland at all, to the extent that I think I might put a few bucks on Haiti just on the offchance they win or draw (and probably live bet Scotland as a hedge if Haiti can keep it scorless through 30+ minutes). Haiti's not exactly horrible, they, like Curacao, and Panama, and Suriname, have grown from totally irrelevant sides in the region to nice little upstarts, doing some damage in Gold Cups, and in youth qualifying tournaments, but still, in terms of long term talent and standing, Haiti isn't even a top 8 side in the region, so I expect them to get shreded, I'm just hoping they can pull off a shock like T&T did in 2006. Probably a pipe dream, but it would be a helluva story for a long suffering people.

Group D.
1.Turkey
2.USA
3.Paraguay
4.Australia
As another poster mentioned, it's not that this is a tough group so much as it's an incredibly even group, with squads that I'd typically imagine were ELO rated in that 15-45 zone. I imagine the US had a terrible ELO ranking after a truly horrific run since Summer '24 (awful red card defeat to Panama, followed by awful toothless supposed fight to the death loss to Uruguay, then a humiliating against the run of play loss to Panama in the NL Semi's, before a nearly as bad consolation game walk off defeat to Canada. Poch basically fired the vets for the Gold Cup camp summer of '25, and went with some vets that didn't piss him off, MLS lifers, and some MLS prospects, and produced a run of strong performances until the the Quarters at which point the team stumbled its way to a final that was won by El Tri thanks to some really egregious reffing (just check out that uncalled handball in the box lol). So I really don't know what USA we're going to see....

The Plus Side:
NL '23 side was fantastic.
NL '24 Final was good.
Fall '25 Friendlies (other than the South Korea game) were GREAT.

The Negative Side:
NL Nov '23 and SF '24 were god awful
Copa America '24 Awful
NL '25 Awful
March '26 Friendlies Awful

So which USMNT shows up? Most of us were really excited after they played quite well in October and November friendlies, but the March friendlies were really bad, unless you decided to only evaluate them on first half performance w/the starters in which they were relatively okay (it was the second halves and sub ons that produced the hideous scorelines and performances).....

So its pretty simple, if we are healthier, and the mindset is right, we'll be fine, and could take the group (key health issues: Richards, Jedi, and Dest on D, Adams, McKennie and Tillman in the MF, Balo and Pepi at striker, I think Weah and Pulisic matter, especially Weah, Pulisic is a mess right now though)....

So I could see us finishing anywhere from 1st to 3rd and just trust Turkey to put it together right now.

We played Paraguay and Australia in friendlies in the fall and bossed both matches for the most part so I'm not terribly worried about either so long as we aren't wearing our we suck hat that we have repeatedly put on the past two years. I'd also underline: the US has not produced 3 consecutive competant strong performances in more than a decade, so there's probably a game in the group stage they will really suck in, which is another reason why I suspect we won't take the group. Too much inconsistency+injuries+erratic performance in general (and our goalies suck/are mediocre at best).

In terms of Paraguay and Australia. I was pretty shocked at Paraguay's campaign, you didn't really see any hint of this possibility in their WC '22 campaign or at Copa America '24 where they stunk, and were god awful, but here they are. There's some legit talent there, but if the US has their ---- together, I'm not super worried. I will say their defense is why I see them potentially taking 3rd, or even jumping to 2nd if they can pitch a shut out against Turkey. Australia, they punch above their weight pretty consistently, but I don't really see the results to suggest they can play at the level of a top 5 or 6 side in Conmebol, Turkey, or the US, if it's got its ---- together. They were very unfortunate to draw this group. They'd be better off if they drew a lobsided group like Belgium's.

Group E:
1.Germany
2. Ivory Coast
3. Ecuador
4. Curacao
This may be the toughest top 3 of any group as I think there are 3 teams in here that could have been group winners elsewhere, and many oh man is that Ivory Coast Ecuador matchup HUGE for Ivory Coast, because I think Ecuador has the ability to pull off a draw against Germany but I don't see Ivory Coast doing that, so 2nd place hinges on at bare minimum, a draw for Ivory Coast. That match will be the opener too, so super, super exciting, Germany will jump to a huge lead after thrashing Curacao in the opener, then it comes down to whether Ivory Coast can get something out of that, and whether Ecuador can find some goals. We know the defense is legit, but can they score? For now, I'm leaning Ivory Coast because their attack is just better, in my view, and their D is adequate, but a HUGE part of that is that opener, that defines how this group plays out to me: An Ecuador win means Ecuador or Germany is taking the group, and Ivory Coast win means for me, anyone could take the group, a draw means Germany almost certainly is taking the group. Very interesting. Of the little engines that could from Concacrap, Curacao is probably the most suspect. They have some nice results since they began their resurgence at Gold Cup '19 where they were unlucky in not pushing the US to extra time or penalties, and since then they've played sporadically well, but this is just such an enormous jump in levels. The only thing they have going for them to me is that Ecuador has a 800 year old striker and struggles to find goals. They'll pitch a shutout against Curacao no problem, but will they find a goal or goals? I expect them too, but goals are a problem for them.

Group F.
1.Netherlands
2. Japan
3. Sweden
4. Tunisia

This group looks kinda simple to me. I like Sweden but they no business being here. Half the teams in UEFA historically haven't even taken the Nations League seriously, so how in hell did they gift them a free pass to the playoff for that nonsense? But they did, and Sweden pretty easily smashed their way in. Japan can be a bit up and down, but I like them more than Sweden who beyond a couple of games in March, looked like hot garbage for several years in a row. Tunisia is the CAF side I really, really love to hate. They pitch shut outs in weak groups, rarely ever beat any one of quality, and sneak into WC because they're always in Pot 1 due to barely scrapping by to the WC and AFCON just enough to retain Pot 1 status so they can avoid the powers, and usually luck into friendly draws. I'm really annoyed they qualified but with that terrible group, it was cake for them. Not anymore once the WC comes knocking (I will credit Tunisia with playing well at WC '22, the first time they haven't sucked in my view).

Group G.
1.Belgium
2.Egypt
3.Iran
4.New Zealand
The most tedious group, I'd probably rank the lesser 3 sides here in the bottom 15, bottom 10, and bottom 3-5 sides in the WC. Just absolute trash behind Belgium. I go back and forth with Egypt and Iran, both are defensively stout regionally, both struggle to find goals, especially Iran, I think egypt has the attack to take 2nd so long as they're oldsters are healthy in the attack. New Zealand could be a surprise and jump to second because honestly, none of the bottom 3 in G are any good, and New Zealand if memory serves surprised some people in 2010, so who knows, maybe it happens again.

Group H.
1.Spain
2.Uruguay
3.Cape Verde
4.Saudi Arabia

Maybe it's just wish fullfillment, but I'd like to think Cape Verde could pull off a 3rd place finish. As previously mentioned, the Saudi's qualified largely because of a rigged playoff that AFC inexplicably allowed (why were the hosts of the playoffs, teams that actually had to qualify through this path? It's not as if they earned the right to be the hosts....both UAE and Iraq actually earned more points in the final stage of qualifying respectively than Qatar or the Saudi's so why were Qatar and the Saudi's the host? I'm still waiting for an argument that makes sense. Hell even if you went by GD as a tiebreaker, UAE were +7 and Qatar -7, and Iraq was +0 and Saudi -1, so again, there's zero justification. UAE and Iraq were then forced into a playoff that only Iraq advanced from. Very annoying, so I'm hoping Cape Verde can pull the upset. This Saudi team is not impressive, and this Cape Verde team did take 4 points off of Cameroon to win their group (and have some good results going back more than a decade in the AFCON and WC Qualifying, so its not totally out of nowhere).

Obviously Spain and Uruguay are the top sides in the group. The only real thing of interest beyond who finishes third, is whether or not Uruguay can arrest it's nose dive post Copa America '24. Heading into that tournament Uruguay was neck and neck with Argentina, and Ecuador in qualifing, and following the tournament, where they made a deep run, they inexplicably fell apart, tumbling down the standings. Sounds like they're sick of Bielsa, if they had landed in a tougher group, a group stage implosion might have been possible, but this group has a total patsy in the Saudi's, and a debutante that might get curb stomped in Cape Verde.

Cape Verde's recent friendlies haven't been impressive, but haven't been awful either:
Drew Iran, and Egypt in the November Friendly Window
Got throttled by a bad Chile side 4-2 (but 3 of the 4 goals from Chile were after a red card)
Tied Finland 1-1.

So not sure what to make of them in terms of competition outside CAF. We'll see. They open against Spain, so, ouch.....

Group I:
1.France
2.Senegal
3.Norway
4.Iraq

One of my favorite groups, really happy to see Iraq back after a 40 year wait. Considering what one of the Saddam kids did for their failures to secure qualification in '98, to see them back, 40 years after being at Mexico '86 is pretty cool. Unfortunately they got a group of death above them, in Champion Contender France, AFCON winner Senegal, and suddenly putting it all together Norway side that after years of looking mid, and not up for it with Haaland, suddenly pulverized the competition and easily won their group with Italy (oh, poor Italy). Iraq is a tough defensive side, team oriented and tough, they might be able to really put the screws to Senegal defensively, against Norway, its harder to see that, same France. The only questions here to me are who finishes 2nd, whether Iraq and pull out a point, and whether France has a shock stumble like the last time they were grouped with Senegal. France definitely step on rakes historically, so I'm not discounting the possibility they could imploded like they did in '94 qualifying and in '02 and '10, but I still think they take the group. I tend to think Senegal's defensive prowess pushes them to 2nd.

Group J:
1.Argentina
2.Algeria
3.Austria
4. Jordan

Anyone unfamiliar might wonder what happened to Algeria in WCQ for Qatar, it's worth a look considering how shocking it was. I'm surprised the stadium is still standing to some degree (Algeria gave up the decisive goal on literally the last kick of the game vs Cameroon, shifting Cameroon from out, to in Qatar '22). Austria has improved a bit in recent cycles, and debutante Jordan figures to be fighting to earn a draw with someone, and probably failing. Argentina is Argentina.

I give second to Algeria simply because Algeria has been reasonably impressive for quite a while at this point, after a meh WC '10, they were excellent at WC '14, okay at WC '18, unlucky to fail to qualify in '22, and at the AFCON level, they were winners in '19, ugly group stage crash outs in '23 and '24, and in '26 they lost out to semifinalist Nigeria in the Quarters. A strong solid team with some quality players, I'm giving it to them, but wouldn't be shocked if Austria finished 2nd instead.

Group K:
1.Portugal
2.Colombia
3. DR Congo
4. Uzbekistan
The two tier group: Portugal and Colombia will battle it out for first, and DR Congo and Uzbekistan will try to keep the GD good and grab a win from one another for a 3rd place ticket. Maybe. We'll see. Portugal has been wishy washy in a game or so a group stage quite often, Colombia can bounce back and forth between devastating and mediocre (for their own standards), DR Congo were excellent in qualifying (drew Senegal away, lost 3-2 at home, which gave Senegal the group), and handled their playoff with aplomb (except for offsides issues), Uzbekistan had been close repeatedly and finally got it done w/o a playoff necessary, but then fired their coach, apparently preferring to begin training up the squad to play a more defensive approach figuring their AFC tactics wouldn't work. They aren't bad, but finishing any higher than 3rd would be a shock and I think DR Congo's floor is their top level and DR Congo's ceiling is superior.



Group L:
1.England
2.Croatia
3. Panama
4. Ghana
This iteration of England ('18-'26) is the best I've ever seen. 1990 was the first WC I watched start to finish, and those dudes were at times at a similar level, but just couldn't reproduce it afterwards, and didn't produce it before hand. I think they should figure out Croatia, who seem like unkillable zombies at this point. Panama and Ghana are weird ones. Panama isn't good, but they can perk up and make it difficult at times and they've pretty firmly been the 4th best team in Concacrap for the past 6-8 years, even if they choked in qualifying in '22. Ghana is just utterly baffling. They've struggled at AFCON, and struggled in WCQ (they absolutely should not have qualified for '22, and got their via bs reffing, at the semifinal round of qualifying no less), and now lost 4 consecutive friendlies to Japan, South Korea, Austria and Germany. But it's also hard to imagine how they could lose to freaking Panama, and yet, what are Ghana at this stage? They haven't really been that impressive since their golden generation finally went to a well earned retirement after 6 consecutive strong AFCon's from 2008 to 2017 and 3 consecutive reasonably good to great WC's '06 to '14. Since that run, they have failed to make a run to the knockouts at any AFCON in the past 3 cycles, you'd have to go back to AFCON '19 for their last half decent run, a round of 16 exit on penalties against Tunisia, other than that, yeah, it's pretty gross since AFCON '17 ended. So I'm gonna sneak Panama in based upon really nothing other than disappointment in Ghana. This could look real stupid.

Now here's the kicker that most in here will be ignoring. There are numerous WC host cities with open air stadiums that will be absolute hellscapes this summer, sure, some stadiums have domes, to protect the players, but many of them don't, and as a result, who will probably be most negatively impacted by this? The UEFA sides playing there. So UEFA fans, if you are playing games in:

The Hellscape Factor Cities:
Miami
NY
Kansas City
Toronto
Philadelphia
Boston
Monterey
Guadalajara

You can expect exceptionally high temperatures, really bad humidity, or both.
Dallas
Atlanta
and Houston are, if memory serves, the retractable roof sites, so even though you'd melt and die there too, you get AC and Indoor temps, so at least there's that. Is there any I'm forgetting? Please correct me if so.

The other stadia:
Seattle
LA
Santa Clara (35-40 miles south of San Francisco)
Vancouver
Azteca (high elevation, can be hot at mid day, and sometimes smoggy)

Shouldn't be too bad, Santa Clara can definitely get hot, same LA, Seattle and Vancouver are far enough North to be fine.

So the UEFA teams most likely to be hamstrung by these conditions (I tend to give AFC, CAF, Conmebol and Concacrap sides a pass on this as all regularly have to play in similar conditions more regularly than the UEFA teams in major campaigns and tournaments):
Czech Republic (Playing in Mexico)
Scotland (playing in the humid Northeast)
Germany (Toronto and NY City based games)
Sweden (1 game in Mexico)
Netherlands (1 game in KC against Tunisia)
Spain (1 game in Mexico, against Uruguay-that could be interesting)
France and Norway (Northeast)
Portugal (play Colombia in Miami)
England (play 2 of 3 games in the Northeast, but not the Croatia game)

 

I just think Egypt's old, they have a couple of superstar level players, but a lot of meh beyond that, and the age is just not great. I don't see it, but the draw was very kind to them, the strongest AFCON teams in my view:
Senegal
Morocco
DR Congo
Ivory Coast

all got much tougher draws than the weakest ones (Egypt, South Africa) to me, although Algeria also got a reasonably weak draw, while Cape Verde got a rough one too, and rough or easy they were always gonna struggle.

I think Egypt makes the knockouts, but its mostly due to the kindness of the draw rather than anything else. I feel bad for the scale of difficult Senegal, and DR Congo in particular have to deal with. Senegal should survive it, but DR Congo is in trouble (might be able to steal a draw to match a win against Uzbekistan, that's their path to me, I think the GD will hurt them in such a tough group).

 

It's exclusively what US shows up, and if we can break the trend of only ever being able to put together two strong performances in 3 game windows. This problem goes back years and years, it is rare to see the US string together 3 performances of quality in a row, and in a group like this, with no poor teams, 1 subpar to bad performance will be a defeat, barring massive luck. None of the opponents in the group are great, but Turkey, on its day, can play with anyone (though apparently Guller just got seriously hurt and may miss some of the WC), Paraguay is a defensive power this cycle, and Australia are basically not too dissimilar from the tough pain in the ---- to play US sides of 1994-2014, who often weren't better than their opponents, but always grinded at 110%. So one stumble, and its probably down to third place....If they show what I saw in 2022 (other than the fall friendlies), what I saw for most of '23 and '24 until the Copa America window, then I think they can do it no problem, but there have been so many downs to the ups and downs in '24, '25 and '26, that I just don't want team will show up.

This team also has a lot of key players either hurt, or lacking an immediate backup even close to them in talent (both FB's Dest and Jedi lack true backups, though Super Bowl Star Antonio Freeman's son, Alex Freeman just got a transfer to La Liga off a stupendous 2025, so maybe he can deputize, we don't have a replacement for Adams in Central Mid as a 6, we don't have creators centrally beyond Tillman and Reyna whose 5 years past an injury that never goes away, McKennie can be good McKennie (world class) and bad McKennie (unplayable) that same week, we have two strong strikers in Balo and Pepi and literally nothing at all behind them, Pulisic's in a funk, and our CB depth is god awful behind Richards, oh, and our goalies range from mediocre to outright trash.

So we have no way of knowing what to expect....I wouldn't be shocked if they beat Parguay 2-0, Australia 3-0 or 3-1, and drew or beat Turkey, but I also wouldn't be surprise if they lost 2 of 3 either, and the most likely result is one strong performance one solid one, and one awful one.....so? Who knows....This team isn't consistent AT ALL.

 

Algeria did not go to Russia, let alone have an "okay" World Cup. I'm not sure if you've mixed them up with Morocco.

 

Qatar: The only thing that probably saves them is their group lacks any true powers, so its probably going to be 2-0, 3-0, and trying to get a draw.

Haiti: I think the Scotland Game is the game they're aiming to get a result in (Scotland aren't exactly prolific), Brazil and Morocco are likely to evicerate them. But they have athleticism, and pace, and could be a bit of a problem for Scotland, but, I think Scotland can probably solve them 1-0 or 2-. Considering how awful its been in Haiti the past several years, I would love to see them pull off an upset. Having watched them the past decade or so improve in Concacrap, they can be a problem with their size and pace and athleticism, but they're just not very good either. For anyone wondering how they qualified, there are two reasons for them and Curacao. One is Concacrap is hosting, so it freed up about 2.5 to 3 slots. Secondly in their group Costa Rica's golden generation retired, their current generation sucks, and both Costa Rica and Honduras dropped points against god awful Nicaragua, and in Costa Rica's case, they lost outright away to Haiti. Honduras was in position to grab this ticket until they stumbled late against Nicaragua and then couldn't beat Costa Rica away. Haiti survived because they managed to go undefeated home and away (without playing any games at home), and Honduras road loss to Nicaragua opened the door to a shock Haiti qualification that they seized.

Curacao: On the plus side, they are working their Dutch connections really, really hard. On the negative side, they're Curacao and their coach quit. Yikes.

Tunisia: I'm not sure what's going to happen with them. They had a much ballyooed defense in qualifying that appeared to be the product of an exceptionally pathetic qualifying group, but there should be some level of respect for holding all your opponents scoreless across 10 qualifiers, that, and the fact that they've been known for their CAF strong defense that doesn't play quite as well in international tournaments. Otoh, I wasn't buying, and they struggled with Tanzania before getting ousted by Mali in the Round of 16. So, I'm not sure how they'll do. However, getting stomped by the Dutch, Sweden and Japan? That's what I expect, scorelines, not so sure.

Everyone other than Belgium in Group G
Somebody in there is gonna suck more than the rest suck in a group where none of the teams save Belgium are in my top 35 at this WC. It's an awful group with 3 different teams that would get smashed to bits in almost any other group, so it will be interesting to see what side climbs out of the wreckage, I'm assuming Iran (if they come) or Egypt, but there's no reason why NZ couldn't simply be better, neither Egypt nor Iran are any bit special (Egypt has some special players, but collectively should be capable of being neutralized since most of the talent wishes it was mid, let alone strong).

Saudi Arabia and Cape Verde
Saudi Arabia or Cape Verde? Who will stink? I'm not really sure which. I am hopeful Cape Verde will handle business, and the Saudi's will get smacked around, but the Saudi's are experienced with the WC, even if they stink, while Cape Verde's got a little bit of a CV regionally (Knocked out Cameroon to get here, at AFCON they won their group in '23 over Egypt and Ghana and made a run to the Quarter in '13 as well, and in '21 they reached the Round of '16, so they have decent to good performances in 3 AFCON's since 2013. At the WC level they've repeatedly finished 2nd in an earlier feeder stage of WCQ suggesting they are pretty firmly a top 10-20 side in CAF, but at least since 2010 probably no better than that. This cycle, w/the expansion and a little luck and strong play, they parlayed that performance into a WCQ one. I just don't know whose going to be worse. i can point to some really nice performances from Cape Verde in 2013, 2021, 2023 and in WCQ this cycle, and they've been okay in WCQ earlier, so is that better than a Saudi side that consistently qualifies but always stinks? Not sure. I'm going with yes, but I think its just because I want it to be true, I love their story.

Iraq and Jordan:
I actually think Iraq should be at least kinda okay at the World Cup in Group I, they're strong on the defensive end like Iran, if not quite at their level, and I'm hoping they bring it, so instead it's Jordan that I expect to get pounded. Jordan's been pretty half decent in the AFC for quite a while (finishing if memory serves, in that 7th-10th area in the AFC), but good? No. Otoh, it's Iraq that has the far more difficult draw. On the one hand, they get to play some of the worlds best at the WC, pretty damn cool, on the negative end, they get to play France, Senegal, and Norway, so get ready to get obliterated....hopefully they can D up and play well in one of the games anyway. As for Jordan, the draw is friendly, but I still think they finish last and get beat up pretty good.


Ghana or Panama:
Ghana's looked pretty awful for a while now so maybe it's them. Panama is actively not good other than in Concacrap competition where they can get away with murder (the worst, most violence supporting refs in the business)....Not sure which side steps on 3 rakes, but it's one of them.

Overall the most annoying to watch in terms of ineptness for me are probably Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and while they're heart warming stories, Cape Verde, Curacao, and Haiti could be even worse. I don't really care, I'm excited to see so many good stories and fans locked out of the World Cup throughout its history get their chance to dance in my country's unfortunate slow and now fast slide into dumpsterfireville, but I will still enjoy it. I love Cinderella stories, even when they end in the Group Stage.

 

The problem is that South Africa only plays in the altitude against Mexico in the opening game, which I don’t think they’ll win.

They play against Czequia in Atlanta and against South Korea in Monterrey, neither of those have altitude.

I have more or less the same predictions as you, the only group where I still can’t decide on any order is group D, I think Turkey is going to get frustrated by Australia but win the other two. Paraguay and USA are both going to beat Australia imo.

On another note, I think one of the surprises is that New Zealand is going to get their first WC win either against Egypt or Iran.

 

Wow, rep for the effort to judge each group so thoroughly

 

The unfortunate reality is that they, and DR Congo for that matter, were drawn into murderously difficult groups where 3rd place would be difficult as hell (actually borderline impossible for Iraq). I'm hopeful for them as well, but what I hope instead is that they can get 1 decent result (draw somebody somehow) and build off of that for 2030 and maybe the AFC doesn't rig it and screw them (they should have the Saudi's group, it's absurd how the AFC handed the Saudi's and Qatar such advantages after the both of them were significantly inferior to their opponents (worse in total points and in GD) in that playoff for a direct ticket).

 

Mostly agree with everything you wrote and predicted except (perhaps ironically) the performance of concacaf teams. I don't think Panama is finishing anything other than last and I think both Mexico and the US will top their groups (if anything because I don't think Korea and Turkey are that good). Also think Canada finishes 3rd but that's kinda a 50/50 anyway.