In a World Cup draw that closely resembled a confusing awards ceremony at times, next summer’s groups are now established.
A supersized tournament means 48 teams were placed into 12 groups, which will be played across three countries in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
So many nations on show means there is arguably less peril for any upsets across the group stage. FIFA’s convoluted draw procedure is designed to maximize the balance between the 12 groups, but some are undoubtedly trickier to navigate than others.
Who has fallen into this tournament’s “Group of Death”? Which group has the closest match-ups? Which nations will be happiest with the outcome of Friday’s draw? Allow The Athletic to walk you through some numbers.
There are so many reasons international football can be tricky to predict how strong a team might be for a major tournament. Recent results can provide a misleading narrative, while it is impossible to predict which nation will be the chosen dark horse that few expected to make a late charge.
Using FIFA’s World ratings as a yardstick for team strength, we can unpick which of the 12 groups are likely to be the most — and least — competitive next summer. As a note, we have made the decision to select the statistically strongest nation in each of the play-off contenders, but surprises will surely come from the remaining qualifier games in the coming months.
If it is a traditional Group of Death you are looking for, then there are three contenders to keep an eye on.
On the assumption that Iraq and Ukraine win their respective play-offs, then groups I and F look to be the two that contain the most threatening teams on average. A group with France, Senegal, Norway and Iraq edges it as the strongest nations statistically, with plenty of narrative to unpack.
Coming to a World Cup near you in 2026 (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
France will be the favorites, but while it is the first time that Norway have qualified for the tournament in 27 years, do not underestimate their strength. Any team containing the creative prowess of Martin Odegaard and the brute force of Erling Haaland should be taken seriously, and Stale Solbakken’s side are building a head of steam. No nation has shown a bigger rise in its FIFA rating than Norway since this time last year.
In group F, the Netherlands, Japan, Tunisia and (potentially) Ukraine will be closely contested, but with group L not having any uncertainty in their four qualified nations, you could argue that England’s group is — in theory — the strongest known group of the dozen.
Thomas Tuchel’s side will still be confident of qualification to the knockout round, but facing Croatia, Panama and Ghana will not be an easy task. Ghana may seem like the easiest of the sides, but they topped their qualifying group with eight wins and just one loss from their 10 games.
It was Croatia who knocked England out of the World Cup in 2018, a year that they also thrashed Panama 6-1 in the group stages. However, this Panama side is stronger than the one they faced over seven years ago. Only Spain and Uzbekistan have earned more FIFA ratings than Panama since the last World Cup in 2022, highlighting the upward trajectory of Thomas Christiansen’s side.
The margins will be tight in every group next summer, but for those seeking a statistical Group of Death, you might have just found it.
Is England head coach Thomas Tuchel facing a harder group than he would have wanted? (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
Fans of the USMNT might not want to hear it, but — statistically speaking — Group D contains nations that are the most tightly matched in their quality. This is measured by looking at the spread (or standard deviation) of the four ratings within each group.
On paper, Mauricio Pochettino’s side are stronger than Australia, Paraguay and (potentially) Turkey, but only just. The U.S. will have home advantage, but expect closely fought contests in each of the games within Group D.
By contrast, Group H has the biggest dispersion across the four teams. European champions Spain look like the statistical ‘winners’ of the draw, with Luis de la Fuente’s side comfortably the strongest nation in a group also containing Uruguay and Saudi Arabia.
At the other end of the scale, World Cup rookies Cape Verde — ranked 68th in FIFA’s world rankings — prop up the remaining teams, with any positive result against Spain likely to be among the biggest shocks of the tournament.
From an individual player perspective, many neutral fans will have earmarked Norway’s clash with France as a mouthwatering game to watch, as Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland battle to be the main character of the show.
As luck would have it, the pair are perfectly matched in their goalscoring league output this season, with a staggering average of 1.1 goals per 90 minutes. Mbappe currently edges it with 16 goals to Haaland’s 15, but whether it is club or country, you can be pretty confident of one fact: both are very, very likely to get on the scoresheet.
With the expansion of the tournament from 32 to 48 teams, the Group of Death was always going to be a watered-down concept. The same 16 fatalities will be logged, but a far smaller slice of the group-stage population will meet their maker. Two-thirds of sides now advance to the knockouts rather than half, and with more teams involved, top sides face weaker opposition in the groups.
The graph below charts the average strength of World Cup groups since 2010, using pre-draw rankings for each tournament. Even if the highest-ranked playoff sides progress, the average will dip below 30 for the first time next summer. And should the expected playoff teams make it through, the average gap between the strongest and weakest sides in each group stretches to 56 places, up from 36 in Qatar.
It’s a far cry from 2014, when half of the eight groups had an average rank of 20 or lower, including a brutally strong Group G of Germany (ranked second), USA (13), Portugal (14), and Ghana (23). Meanwhile, Brazil’s meeting with Haiti next summer comes with a 79-place ranking gap, the largest gulf since 2010, when it was also Brazil, then ranked first, who beat North Korea (91st) 2-1.
But rankings are a single snapshot and ignore how teams are trending. Only Switzerland, true to their reputation for neutrality, has seen its ranking points stay exactly the same since the 2022 World Cup.
Brazil have actually lost more ranking points than any other qualified side, while their Group C opponents, Haiti, Scotland, and Morocco, have all gained momentum.
The quality of this World Cup may be diluted, but across the tournament, there are teams that will play better or worse than their standing suggests. Costa Rica proved as much in 2014, topping a group containing Italy, England and Uruguay, all sides ranked in the top 10 when the draw was made. The group stage Grim Reaper won’t be shelving that scythe just yet.