Twaalf Groepen, Acht Nummers Drie Die Doorgaan en een Wereldwijde Excel-Crash

48 teams are divided into 12 groups. Four teams per group. The top two from each group advance—that’s simple, 24 teams. Then FIFA says: ‘There are eight more spots for the best third-placed teams.’ That sentence is where all the chaos begins.

Twelve groups, twelve third-placed teams. You have to pick eight to advance. What do you compare? First, points. If points are tied, goal difference. If goal difference is tied, goals scored. If goals scored are tied, fair play points (a yellow card deducts 1 point, a red card deducts 3). If all of those are the same—a draw.

I was sitting in the press box at AT&T Stadium in Dallas during the final round of the group stage. The journalist next to me—an Englishman who’s been writing about football for The Guardian for twenty years—opened his laptop, pulled up the live standings, and turned the screen toward me. The standings for all 12 groups were updating simultaneously. The third-placed team in Group C had the same points as the third-placed team in Group F, but Group F’s third-placed team had a better goal difference by one, so Group F was ahead. But the match in Group G was still going—87th minute—and if a goal was scored there, the entire ranking would reshuffle. He turned the screen back, typed three words on his keyboard: ‘I have no idea.’

But he didn’t need to know. Because FIFA designed this format not for you to calculate clearly. It’s to ensure that every match in the final round of the group stage has stakes. In the 32-team era, the final round often had so-called ‘dead rubbers’—both teams already qualified or eliminated, the match meaningless. Under the 48-team format, that almost never happens. Because even the bottom-placed team, if they win one match, could sneak into one of those eight third-placed spots. Every match counts. Every goal counts.

So if you’re in a bar during the final round of the group stage and you see a crowd huddled around a phone, opening Excel, arguing over goal difference while drinking beer—don’t laugh at them. They’re experiencing the most unique ritual of the 2026 World Cup: searching for order in chaos, then giving up, then ordering another beer, and then waiting for the referee to blow the whistle.