2026 World Cup: How third-place teams can still advance to the knockout stage

The 2026 World Cup includes third-place teams in the knockout rounds for the first time since the 1994 tournament in the United States. The last time the U.S. hosted the World Cup, the field was 24 teams and 16 teams made the knockout rounds. When the tournament was expanded to 32 teams in 1998, the knockout rounds stayed at 16 teams. That made the math easy. The top two teams from each of the eight four-team groups advanced. With the move to expand this Cup by 16 more teams to 48, the World Cup increased from eight groups to 12. And it brought third-place teams back into the equation when FIFA added a Round of 32. Eight of the 12 third-place teams will still advance to the knockout stage after the group stage ends on June 27, meaning results in later games could directly impact teams that finished their groups earlier in the week. There will definitely be some nervous teams and fans of third-place teams next week. Here's how the whole process will play out. How the third-place teams are determined The eight advancing third-place teams will be determined by points. But there are going to be a lot of teams tied on four or three points. Simply going by points isn't enough. The first tiebreaker is goal differential. A team with four points over three games with a two-goal win, a tie and a one-goal loss will have a significant advantage over a team with four points who won by one, lost by one and tied. The second tiebreaker is goals allowed. If teams are even on goal differential, the team that allowed fewer goals will be given priority. The third tiebreaker will be a team's fair play score based on its number of yellow and red cards in the group stage. The fewer cards, the better. And red cards negatively impact a team's fair play score more than yellow cards do. A team like South Africa, which had two players receive straight red cars in its opening match against Mexico, doesn't want to get to this step in the tiebreaking process. If there are any teams in line for the knockout rounds that are tied on fair play points, FIFA's world rankings are the final tiebreaker. Head-to-head is now a variable While head-to-head results won't have anything to do with the how the advancing third-place teams are picked, they may end up determining if a team finishes in third place. In recent years, FIFA had eschewed head-to-head results as a tiebreaker in group play in favor of goal differential and goals allowed if two teams ended up tied on points. But this year, if two teams have the same number of points in their group, the result of their game will be the first tiebreaker. If that game was a tie, then goal differential becomes the primary tiebreaker. How the third-place teams stack up after two games: Group A Czechia : 1 point, minus-1 goal differential Czechia is tied on points with South Africa, but has a goal differential that's one better. Czechia ends group play against Mexico, which clinched the group with a win over South Korea on Thursday night. South Africa plays second-place South Korea. Group B Bosnia and Herzegovina: 1 point, minus-3 goal differential The Bosnians lost 4-1 to Switzerland on Thursday but are still three goals ahead of Qatar on goal differential for third place after Qatar's 6-0 loss to Canada. Bosnia-Herzegovina can put itself in the mix for a knockout round spot with a win over Qatar to end the group stage.