This summer is the 23rd edition of the FIFA World Cup, but the very first to feature 48 nations, expanded from 32. Across the 12 groups of four, the top two from each group will advance to the knockout stages, as will the eight best-ranked third place teams. With 67% of nations progressing, the points tally required to make it out of the group stages has never been lower.
So, this got us thinking, how many points do teams need to book their spot in the round of 32? While we have never seen a World Cup of this size before, there have been plenty of 12-team and 24-team tournaments in the past with identical formats, just on a smaller scale. So, to answer this question, we looked at the following competitions.
Tournaments featuring 12 or 24 teams analysed
- Men's FIFA World Cups: 1986, 1990 & 1994.
- Women's FIFA World Cups: 1991, 2015 & 2019.
- Men's UEFA Euros: 2016, 2021 & 2024.
- Women's UEFA Euros: 2009 & 2013.
- Men's Copa América: '93, '95, '97, '99, '01, '04, '07, '11, '15 & '19.
- Men's AFC Asian Cups: 1996, 2000, 2019 & 2024.
- Women's AFC Asian Cups: 2026.
- Men's Africa Cup of Nations: 2019, 2022, 2024 & 2026.
- Women's Africa Cup of Nations: 2022 & 2024.
- Men's CONCACAF Gold Cup: '05, '07, '09, '11, '13, '15 & '17.
- CONCACAF W Gold Cup: 2024.
- Women's Olympics football: 2008, 2012, 2016, 2021 & 2024.
Only senior men's and women's international tournaments were considered. So, using data from these 45 competitions, here is what points tally will be enough to see a team progress.
Points tallies of third-place finishers in 12 or 24 team tournaments
Points tally | Times happened | % team qualified | % team eliminated |
|---|---|---|---|
6 | 4 | 100% | 0% |
4 | 66 | 98.48% | 1.51% |
3 (GD +2 or more) | 3 | 100% | 0% |
3 (+1GD) | 2 | 50% | 50% |
3 (0 GD) | 19 | 89.47% | 10.53% |
3 (-1 GD) | 14 | 42.86% | 57.15% |
3 (GD -2 or worse) | 39 | 41.03% | 58.97% |
2 | 26 | 23.08% | 76.92% |
1 | 4 | 0% | 100% |
Unsurprisingly, all four teams who finished third in six points did progress to the knockout stages. Of the 66 sides who accumulated four points, only one has ever ben eliminated. That is Canada at the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup. All three third-place finishers at that tournament ended up on four points, with the Canucks' -1 goal difference inferior than that of Guatemala and El Salvador. This outlier aside, four points is always enough to see a team progress.
At the other end of the scale, none of the four teams with only one points did enough to qualify. Meantime, six of 26 sides who secured only two points did go through. In the three-points-for-a-win era, these are Paraguay at the 2019 Copa América and Tanzania at the Africa Cup of Nations earlier this year. Meantime, at the 2013 Women's Euros, both Denmark and Russia ended up with two points and identical records, and it was de Rød-Hvide who snuck through, only after the drawing of lots.
So, four points or more will see a team through, while two points or fewer will almost certainly see a side eliminated. The nuance comes for teams on three points. Three points and a goal difference of +2 or better gets a team through 100%, while only two sides have ever ended with three points and a +1 goal difference, making that too small a sample size to really analyse.
Interestingly, three points and a zero goal difference has been enough to see teams progress 17 out of 19 times. Teams on -1 goal difference are eliminated slightly more of the time, while those with a goal difference of -2 or worse are dumped out almost 60% of the time.
Put succinctly, if a team manages one win by an emphatic margin, and then avoids heavy defeats in their other two fixtures, they'll almost certainly do enough to reach the knockouts. It is such a forgiving format, meaning no strong sides, including the USA, should be crashing out this early.
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