The participation of 48 teams in the World Cup required FIFA (International Football Federation) to redefine the classification format for the knockout stages, which gained an additional phase, prior to the round of 16, with 32 teams.
As in previous editions, all teams that finish first and second in their groups advance to the next phase. As there are now 12 groups, 24 teams are guaranteed.
The difference in this edition is that, in addition to them, the eight best teams that finish third will qualify.
This will be defined at the end of the last round of the group stage, which ends this Saturday (27).
All 12 teams placed third will form a separate leaderboard, in which they will be compared under the following criteria, in order: number of points, goal difference, number of goals scored, number of cards and position in the FIFA ranking. This is how the best eight will be known.
The new format increases the chances of qualifying, because a team can go to the round of 32 even if they are among the worst in their group, as long as they do not finish last and perform better than four third-placed teams.
Once these eight are confirmed, FIFA will use an annex to the World Cup regulations to determine the duels. Due to the new format, it is already known that the winners of groups A, B, D, E, G, I, K and L will be the opponents of the third placed teams.
What remains to be defined is who will face whom, because the entity wants to avoid clashes between teams from the same group at this stage.
For example, Germany is already guaranteed first place in Group E. Ivory Coast, Ecuador and Curaçao are competing for the remaining places in the final round, this Thursday (25). Whoever finishes third will need to hope to have enough points to be among the top eight. If so, they won’t catch Germany in the next phase.
A member of Group C, Brazil will face the second placed team in Group F (from the Netherlands, Japan and Sweden) if they finish first. If you place second, you will catch the F leader. If you qualify third, you will need to wait to find out your opponent in the next phase.
FIFA Annex C lists all possible options in lines — there are 495 specifically. The calculation considers all combinations between the winners of the eight groups (A, B, D, E, G, I, K and L) and the 12 third-placed teams (groups A to L), except crosses between teams from the same group.
Once the eight best third-place teams are known, there will be only one possible scenario in which they do not meet teams they have already played against in the first round again. FIFA will look for this line to publicize the clashes.
It’s like a big puzzle that depends on some conditions to have its solution chosen.
