Who’s Winning The World Cup: Day 3 – Permutation anticipation, Swiss history and sticker albums – The Athletic
Welcome to The Athletic’s daily World Cup cheatsheet, your guide to which teams are up, which are down — with the data analysis to back it up.
We will unpack the key talking points from each matchday and give you the stats you need to stay in the know. And if you want to go deeper, don’t worry, we will point you in the direction of some of The Athletic’s best World Cup coverage.
What happened on day three of the World Cup?
There are pros and cons to the World Cup’s expansion to 48 teams, but one of FIFA’s aims was to make it more global, with more countries competing for a place in the finals.
And day three taught us that the gaps between soccer’s confederations could be narrowing. Qatar got an equalizer — which, at 93 minutes and 59 seconds, is the third latest in a group-stage game in recorded World Cup history — to draw with Switzerland and gain their first World Cup point; African champions Morocco went toe-to-toe with Brazil in another 1-1 draw; Haiti very nearly drew with Scotland; and Australia ran their socks off to beat Turkey 2-0.
It’s early days but there is a sense of parity at the 2026 World Cup. Players for less established nations, including Australian goalkeeper Patrick Beach, are stepping up when it counts (Beach’s eight saves against Turkey are the most by any goalkeeper on their World Cup debut since 2002) and, although Germany ended up thrashing Curacao in Houston, there has been a lot to enjoy for fans of competitiveness — including a first World Cup goal for debutants Curacao.
Morocco were more than a match for Brazil on day three of the 2026 World Cup. (Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images)
What does that mean for the tournament?
Draws — or ties — are something that soccer produces a lot more of than most American sports. It can, to some, feel unsatisfying to play an entire game and not have a winner (and let’s not get started on cricket matches that can take five days and not produce a decisive result).
But draws in this format of the World Cup mean that we could be in for a monumental matchday three — aka the final round of group games — at this summer’s tournament. Ties mean close groups, and with eight of the 12 third-place teams going through to the round of 32, we could be in for a permutation frenzy in a couple of weeks.
Keep a close eye on Group B, which has started with two 1-1 draws, meaning that although Qatar remain outsiders, their chance of progressing to the knockout round has risen to 30 percent, based on advanced data. And The Athletic’s model is having to process the fact that Scotland are top of Group C after one game. Heavyweights Brazil and Morocco are still strongly fancied to progress but if one of them does so as a third-placed side, they will act as a major loose cannon in the bracket.
Percentage chance of progressing after one game
Thing to tell a friend or colleague today
For the collectible sticker community, Brazil vs Morocco was a particularly discombobulating experience.
Both squads had seven players who had been included in Panini’s official sticker album but were absent from the final World Cup squad.
Only Ghana have more, with eight players immortalised in adhesive glory yet nowhere to be seen in North America. The combined total of 14 players tonight will be the highest for any match in the group stages.
Guessing final squads is not an easy science, so we should probably congratulate the adhesive executives on the fact there are eight teams without a single incorrect player.
Stat of the day
Switzerland is undoubtedly the home of sports administration, with more than 75 sports organizations — including FIFA — headquartered in the landlocked central European state.
So it makes it odd that perhaps one of the most administrative parts of a soccer game — the awarding and scoring of a penalty kick — had eluded them for so long. Yes, the award of the penalty against Qatar was controversial, but by converting it, Breel Embolo became the first Swiss player to score from the spot in a World Cup game (excluding penalty shootouts).
And Switzerland is no World Cup newbie — this is their 13th appearance and Saturday’s match was their 42nd World Cup game. An oddity was ended in Santa Clara.
Breel Embolo makes history for the Swiss. (Fran Santiago / Getty Images)
Match-up of the day to look out for
As mooted above, there’s a chance that Germany runs up a big score against Curacao on Sunday, but if that happens, bear in mind that in landmass terms, this is the biggest mismatch of the 21st century.
As the chart below shows, from the 2002 World Cup onwards, this is the biggest disparity of dry land, followed narrowly by Canada’s game with Qatar on June 18. Other landmass encounters to look out for this summer are Curacao’s games with Ivory Coast and Ecuador, and Saudi Arabia’s encounter with Cape Verde.
Still, it’s not how much dry land you have, it’s what you do with it (build soccer pitches to develop high-quality players).
Who’s winning the World Cup?
Brazil went all in on trying to win this World Cup by hiring one of the greatest coaches in the history of club soccer. No other coach at this World Cup even gets close to Carlo Ancelotti’s record: he has won a record five Champions League titles (two with Milan and three with Real Madrid) as well as league titles in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Yet Brazil met their match in a Morocco side coached by Mohamed Ouahbi, who took charge of his first competitive senior soccer match and saw his team outplay the Brazilians in the first half.
If Brazil don’t win this tournament, it will become the longest stretch in their history without lifting the World Cup since their first triumph in 1958. Yet even with a coach as accomplished as Ancelotti, they are still more unlikely than likely to win the World Cup for a sixth time. A draw with Morocco hasn’t significantly hampered their short-term prospects but another underwhelming display against Haiti and the alarm bells — even for a figure as calm as Ancelotti — will start to sound.
