Spain are the first team through to the 2026 World Cup final, beating France 2-0 in their semi-final in Dallas on Tuesday
Luis de la Fuente’s side were imperious in beating France, who held the No 1 spot in The Athletic’s World Cup team rankings for most of this tournament after some remarkable attacking displays. But now they have to hang around for the indignity of the third-place playoff on Saturday, waiting to see which of the other sad semi-final losers will join them
Argentina and England will be scrapping not to be that team, two flawed sides who have found ways to win their games. But both of them can’t do that on Wednesday night in Atlanta…
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1. Spain
FIFA ranking: 1
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Perhaps their semi-final taught us all a valuable lesson about the difference between the best team and the best set of players
Spain were incredible in beating France, nullifying their remarkable attacking talents at one end and then doing just enough to get the goals they needed at the other. You get the feeling that Spain could have scored a couple more if they wanted, but chose not to. It was a bit like Muhammad Ali choosing to let George Foreman fall to the canvas in the Rumble In The Jungle, rather than swinging a final punch to really humiliate him
After watching that, it feels like neither of the other semi-finalists stand a chance against them in New Jersey on Sunday. Who would’ve thought this when they were drawing 0-0 with Cape Verde a few weeks ago…
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2. Argentina
FIFA ranking: 3
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Defending the World Cup is hard work, and perhaps Argentina are discovering why nobody has done it since 1962
In their knockout games thus far, they required extra-time to beat Cape Verde, were 2-0 down to Egypt with 11 minutes remaining and squeaked past 10-man Switzerland, again in extra-time
And yet, here they are. The semi-final will be a game between two teams who haven’t been especially impressive in their general play, but perhaps Lionel Scaloni will be encouraged by the fact his team didn’t have to rely on Lionel Messi this time
They’re the only semi-finalists to have faced two lots of extra-time, which could ultimately count against them, but the presence of their No 10 and their ability to pull things out of the bag means they will be favourites to reach the final
Lionel Messi is still producing great performances (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
5. Norway
FIFA ranking: 21
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Ultimately, Norway were fairly disappointing in their defeat to England
They looked the better side for big chunks of normal time, but when England sat back following Bellingham’s second in extra-time, you felt they could have done more to try to break through
As it was, they politely knocked on the door rather than hammering on it, and they would have stood a much better chance had Erling Haaland been on the pitch until the end
Still, at their first World Cup since 1998, Norway reached the quarter-finals for the first time ever and beat Brazil on the way. The future is surely bright for this special generation of players
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.
