World Cup 2026 and the Battle between Confederations

UEFA Tier 2 teams performing pretty well so far!

If they can maintain that we could be looking at a repeat of USA94 with UEFA teams dominating the latter stages.

 

UEFA teams went 3/3 today!

 

Teams P W D L %
16/16 Uefa 13 6 5 2 65%
9/9 AFC 8 2 4 2 50%
6/6 Concacaf 5 2 1 2 50%
1/1 OFC 1 0 1 0 50%
6/6 Conmebol 5 1 2 2 40%
10/10 CAF 8 1 3 4 31%
48/48 Total 40 12 16 12 50%

And by average point it's:
UEFA 1,77 points
Concacaf 1,4 points
AFC 1,25 points
Conmebol 1 point
OFC 1 point
CAF 0,75 point

So South America is no longer last while Asia has fallen down to third after those two losses.

 

Yeah. I picked all 16 UEFA teams to advance to the KO stage at the start. Not because I think they're all so great but they have enough to grab a point here and there and see out games against the weakest teams in each group. See Scotland, Austria, Bosnia - not impressive by any means but on track for a 3rd place finish at least.

 

Czechia might let you down though.

 

Yeah, they got played off the park. But did manage to score and keep the scoreline close, and with South Africa up next I see them finishing with 3 points and a decent goal difference. Probably enough.

Scotland is the main question mark for me because they're on track for 3 points and a negative GD unless they can pull off a pretty big upset.

 

I am expecting a big performance by Scotland against Morocco; hopefully it'll be enough for at least a point!

 

Yeah, it's just Argentina and the rest now. Given Brazil's rapid decline there's no appreciable difference anymore between them and Uruguay/Colombia. Unfortunately 2022 was probably their best chance for a while.

 

I thought before the WC started that every CAF team other than Tunisia had a reasonable path to the knockouts.

A lot of statement draws against top ranked teams, but the Ws need to come.

 

Yes, some massive MD2 games coming up!

 

It'll be interesting to see if 3 points will be enough to advance more than half the time (or even two-thirds of the time, as some statisticians were predicting). I'm betting on less than 50% of (3rd-place) teams with 3 points advancing. Sometimes we see 3rd-place teams with 2 or even 1 points but doesn't look like any of the 12 groups will have that, which suggests 4 teams with 3 points will be eliminated.

But either way, I don't see a path at all for South Africa as well as Tunisia.

For Ghana and Algeria, I think it goes to my question about 3 points. And maybe Senegal too. GD already a problem for Algeria.

Senegal v Norway is arguably the biggest match of the entire group stage. Hopefully they don't play for a draw. That would be a waste for fans.

 

There will be a group or two where 3rd place doesn't pick up 3 points. There have already been some surprising results and they've been draws. Groups A, B, D, G, H and J are all possibles for this. It needs the two poorest teams in a group to draw against each other.

 

I think both Senegal and Norway will advance.

Im not completely sure about Algeria! It’s 50-50 at this rate. Ghana is also 50-50. It depends how many goals England score against them and how many goals Croatia score against Panama. I wouldn’t be surprised if Croatia and Ghana play draw in the end if it benefits both teams.

 

2nd tier CONMEBOL team eliminated a 2nd tier Euro squad this evening.

 

Turkey is done. Czechia will probably join them soon, and possibly Scotland too.

We severely overrated UEFA.

 

Not me.

 

The 2nd tier of UEFA has been overrated for decades. These type of teams usually do poorly, especially when the world cups are outside of Europe.

 

Yes Croatia finished on the podium at the last two WCs, very poor perfromance!

 

Croatia wasn't a 2nd tier side.

 

They were!

In 2018 both Sweden and Russia reached the QFs.

 

I think it really just depends on the exact teams. There are historically reliable UEFA teams and unreliable ones that you can just never trust.

Like for example I always say NEVER TRUST Ukraine or Serbia to do well. And I’m probably going to add Turkey to this list soon if I keep seeing inconsistent performances from them.

Croatia, Switzerland, England, and Sweden tend to always be reliable once they qualify for the World Cup. They’ll lose to teams clearly better than them but won’t blow it against teams they’re favorites against (NOT counting one group stage match here and there that might not matter much at all for their overall place in the tournament).

Teams like Spain, Portugal, and Italy; you are not always sure with. Once qualified, they tend to usually beat teams they’re clear favorites against but sometimes they can disappoint. It often depends on the cycle and the performances between the players.

I’m still waiting to see how Austria does! I was a bit disappointed with them last match but that was one game.

 

I didn't!

They still play higher quality football than their non-UEFA counterparts and over the course of the competition the profile of results in any comparison should prove it.

 

UEFA teams starting to dish out some heavy beatings!

 

For those who have ever doubted the quality of the AFCON.

Cape Verde who tied both Spain and Uruguay didnt even qualify for the recent tournament.

 

My impression is that CAF has performed admirably despite the doubling of the size of its delegation.