Football
Forty-eight teams started these World Cup finals a month ago — now only six remain.
Tomorrow that will be whittled down to a final four. Morocco became the first quarter-finalists to be knocked out, losing 2-0 to the seemingly unstoppable France on Thursday, before brave Belgium finally succumbed to Spain in Los Angeles on Friday with a late 2-1 defeat.
So how do the remaining contenders stack up? Here’s a look at our latest rankings.
Six matches, six wins, 16 goals scored, only two conceded… who can prevent the French winning this World Cup?
If Kylian Mbappe (eight goals) doesn’t get you, then Ousmane Dembele (five goals) will instead. As it transpired, both of them got Morocco who, despite being the best African nation at the tournament, offered little resistance to Didier Deschamps’ team.
France remain clear favourites to win this World Cup, not just because of their ridiculously talented attack (Michael Olise tops the tournament’s assists chart with five) but also their strong defence. They haven’t conceded a goal in their three knockout-stage matches and, to be honest, have barely allowed a chance either.
They deservedly remain top of our rankings — and The Athletic’s live projection tool forecasts a 34 per cent chance of France lifting the trophy at next Sunday’s final.
Another win and another late Mikel Merino winner as Spain’s unlikely hero sent them into the semi-finals with a dramatic victory over Belgium.
Once more, Spain limited their opposition to relatively few chances (Belgium created just 0.37 expected goals, or xG), although they did finally concede their first goal of the tournament in their 2-1 victory.
It’s difficult to fully appreciate how good Spain are. Lamine Yamal was dangerous against Belgium and showed signs of his top form, but with only one goal and no assists in the tournament so far he’s lagging well behind his fellow superstars with the mark he is making on the World Cup.
However, be it via Merino or Mikel Oyarzabal or mostly via their stubborn defence, Spain keep finding a way. Their semi-final against France is an utterly tantalising prospect; a classic clash of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.
After a smooth-sailing group stage, Argentina’s knockout games have been back-and-forth humdingers against Cape Verde and now Egypt.
The Cape Verde game showed something we had seen from them during their run to the trophy four years ago, when they could be susceptible to giving up leads, as they did against the Netherlands and France.
But against Egypt, they produced a turnaround victory from 2-0 down, scoring three goals in 13 minutes when it seemed they were heading out.
It is a concern that Argentina have laboured this much against teams they were heavy favourites to beat, but then it is also impressive that they have demonstrated the strength of character and will to win to get over the line.
The question now is how much have those two matches taken out of them? They face Switzerland next, who have shown they aren’t easy to beat either. The fact they have avoided one of the more fancied teams in the quarter-finals keeps them above England in these rankings.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported which team had the worst goal differential in the tournament. It was Iraq, not Tunisia. The article has been corrected.
Read More Augustine Ramage