So that's it. The group stage of the World Cup is over. Forty-eight teams became thirty-two. Some of the names that went home will shock you, some of the names that stayed will surprise you even more, and somewhere in the middle of it all, Portugal did the most Portugal thing imaginable — qualified, but in a way that left me both relieved and quietly terrified about what comes next.
Let me try to make sense of three weeks of chaos, because there was a LOT of it. And yes, I'm going to talk about Portugal first, because I'm a Portugal fan and that's how this works.
I went into this tournament cautiously optimistic and I'm coming out of the group stage feeling... complicated. Let me walk you through it because it was a journey.
Game one was the DR Congo draw, and I wrote about my frustration with that one at the time. 1-1. João Neves headed us in front early — a lovely cross from Pedro Neto, exactly the kind of move that makes you think this team can be special — and then Yoane Wissa equalized right before half-time with Congo's first-ever World Cup goal. We dominated possession, created chances, and just couldn't find the second goal. The "Ronaldo problem" headlines started before the final whistle had even stopped echoing.
And then game two happened and oh, what a response. Portugal 5-0 Uzbekistan. Ronaldo with a brace, becoming the first player in history to score at SIX different World Cups. Six. He'd been written off, mocked, declared finished — and he went out and made history with two first-half goals. I wrote a whole piece about it. It felt like the team had clicked, like the doubts were silly, like we were going to march through this tournament.
And then game three brought us crashing back to earth. Colombia 0-0 Portugal in Miami, in front of 64,478 people, most of them in yellow and screaming for Colombia. We needed to win to top the group. We didn't. Worse — Ronaldo was booed every single time he touched the ball, starved of service, and had basically one shot on target all night (a long-range free kick straight at the keeper). Diogo Costa was our best player and won Man of the Match, which tells you everything about how the game went. When your goalkeeper is your standout performer in a game you needed to win, something isn't clicking.
Davinson Sánchez even put the ball in our net in stoppage time before it was ruled out for a marginal offside — so we nearly lost. We finished second in the group on five points, behind Colombia's seven.
Here's the thing that keeps nagging at me, and Al Jazeera put it perfectly: Portugal "have not quite yet found a way to blend all the talent in their squad into an effective team." That's the story of this generation, isn't it? We have arguably the deepest, most talented squad in the entire tournament — Bruno, Leão, Neves, Vitinha, the whole golden collection — and we keep looking like a group of brilliant individuals rather than a team. Three games in and we've scored five goals in one match and managed one in the other two combined.
But — and this is the silver lining — finishing second might actually be a blessing in disguise. It puts us on the OPPOSITE side of the bracket to Argentina. Which means the Ronaldo vs Messi final that the whole world wants is still alive, but only if both of them make it all the way. The romance of it is almost too much. Two 39/41-year-old icons, both at their sixth and surely final World Cup, on a collision course that can only happen in the final itself.
Next up: Croatia, in Toronto, in the Round of 32. And I'll be honest — Croatia terrify me. Modrić might be ancient but that midfield always knows how to make Portugal look disjointed. It's going to be a nervy one.
Okay. Deep breath. Because some BIG names are already out, and I genuinely didn't see some of these coming.
Uruguay. This is the big one for me. Uruguay — proper, historic, tournament-hardened Uruguay — went home in the group stage. And the way it happened was brutal: Fernando Muslera, the veteran keeper, made an error that gifted Spain a 1-0 win in the final game. But honestly the damage was done earlier, with draws against Saudi Arabia and Cape Verde. And here's the kicker — it was Cape Verde, tiny Cape Verde, who took "their" spot in the knockouts with an unbeaten group campaign. Let that sink in.
South Korea. Three points, a goal difference of minus-one, and they STILL went out. They looked to be in a decent position to sneak through as a third-placed team and then South Africa's Thapelo Maseko scored in the 63rd minute of the final round and leapfrogged them. Brutal margins.
Iran. This one was heartbreaking even as a neutral. They went unbeaten — three draws — and thought they'd done enough. They were celebrating qualification when Algeria's Mahrez scored late against Austria. And then, moments later, Sasa Kalajdzic headed an equalizer for Austria to make it 3-3, which sent Austria through on the third-place table instead of Iran. Unbeaten and eliminated by a goal in a game they weren't even playing in. Football can be unspeakably cruel.
The debutants who went home with their heads high: Jordan (lost all three but scored in every game, including their first-ever World Cup goal), Curaçao (held Ecuador to a draw — more on that madness in a second), and Haiti (back at a World Cup after 52 years, lost all three but battled). The expanded format gave these tiny nations their moment, and even in elimination, they got memories that'll last generations.
Also gone: Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, Scotland (the Tartan Army drank North America dry and went home after the group stage, as is tradition).
This is the part of the tournament I'll remember most. The 48-team format that everyone (me included) was so sceptical about? It produced the most gloriously chaotic group stage I can remember.
Cape Verde. A nation of half a million people. HALF A MILLION. They went unbeaten in their group and knocked out URUGUAY. This is one of the great World Cup stories of all time and it's only the group stage. Whatever happens to them next, they've already won.
Ecuador 2-1 Germany. I wrote about this when it happened and I still can't quite believe it. Germany, four-time world champions, beaten by an Ecuador side that had one point going into the game. Germany still topped the group on goal difference, but getting beaten like that was a statement.
The Curaçao draw with Ecuador in matchweek two — a World Cup debutant from a Caribbean island with a population smaller than most European cities, holding a genuine contender. Glorious.
Group G's madness. ESPN reported the top two spots in Group G switched SEVEN times over the course of one evening, three times in the final ten minutes alone. Belgium thumped New Zealand 5-1 to grab top spot, while Egypt clung on to a 1-1 draw with Iran thanks to a late VAR offside call that broke Iranian hearts. Seven lead changes. In one night. Across two simultaneous games. That's the kind of drama the new format created.
DR Congo — the team that frustrated us in game one — qualified for the knockouts for the first time in their history (their first since playing as Zaire in 1974), beating Uzbekistan 3-1 with Wissa scoring twice. They get England next, which is a reward and a curse at the same time.
South Africa sneaking through to the knockouts for the first time, after losing the opener to Mexico. Hugo Broos has done something special there.
Quick state of the favourites:
France look ominous. Won all three, plus-eight goal difference, full nine points. They rotated heavily and still won. They're the team nobody wants to draw.
Spain are quietly terrifying — Lamine Yamal is 18 and looks like the best player in the tournament. They put four past Saudi Arabia and beat Uruguay to top their group.
Argentina won their group before they'd even played their final game. Messi's last dance rolls on, and they're on the other side of the bracket from us — which is exactly why the dream final is still mathematically alive.
Brazil beat Scotland 3-0, won their group, and are starting to look like Brazil again.
Mexico topped their group with a perfect nine points in front of their own fans at the Azteca — a brilliant story for the co-hosts. The USA and Canada both went through too, so all three host nations made it, which is exactly the storyline FIFA dreamed of.
The group stage delivered everything. Giants humbled (Germany, Uruguay), debutants making history (Cape Verde, Curaçao, DR Congo), late drama that defied belief (Group G's seven lead changes, Iran's heartbreak), and host nations rising to the occasion. I was wrong to doubt the 48-team format. It's been chaotic and unpredictable and absolutely glorious.
And Portugal? Portugal are through. Second place, five points, a squad full of talent that still hasn't quite become a team, and a 41-year-old captain who made history one week and got booed around a stadium the next. It's frustrating and it's thrilling and it's so completely, painfully, beautifully Portuguese that I can't help but love it even when it drives me mad.
Croatia next. Toronto. Round of 32. If we get past them, the path opens up — and somewhere at the end of it, if the football gods are feeling generous, there might just be a date with Messi and Argentina that the whole world will stop to watch.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. One game at a time. Croatia first. My nerves, once again, are not ready.
Bring on the knockouts.
