The World Cup is not traditionally the tournament for underdogs. The trophy has been lifted by just eight countries — and five of those have won multiple times. But there’s usually enough room for a few Cinderella stories to creep into the knockout phase: Bulgaria (1994), South Korea (2002) and Turkey (2002) were unexpected semifinalists, […]
Over the next few days, FiveThirtyEight will be examining each of the eight groups in the 2018 World Cup, which begins Thursday in Russia. Read about Group A, Group B and Group C. Lionel Messi still has not won a senior international tournament. His Argentina was defeated by Germany in the last World Cup and […]
There’s really only one competitive match on the docket Wednesday, but it’s an intriguing one. Australia vs. Netherlands: 12 p.m. EDT Spain vs. Chile: 3 p.m. EDT Cameroon vs. Croatia: 6 p.m. EDT IN BRIEF See our World Cup predictions for the latest probabilities. IN DEPTH The best matchup of the day — by far — is La […]
There’s really only one competitive match on the docket Wednesday, but it’s an intriguing one. Australia vs. Netherlands: 12 p.m. EDT Spain vs. Chile: 3 p.m. EDT Cameroon vs. Croatia: 6 p.m. EDT IN BRIEF See our World Cup predictions for the latest probabilities. IN DEPTH The best matchup of the day — by far — is La […]
Brazil defeated Croatia 3-1 in the opening match of the World Cup on Thursday — while looking about as bad as it could while winning by that scoreline. Its go-ahead goal came on a penalty kick following a dubious call by referee Yuichi Nishimura. Its third goal perhaps ought to have been stopped by Croatian goalkeeper Stipe Pletikosa. […]
