How is the tiebreaker resolved in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup and who goes through to the round of 16?

Not even the first day of the group stage of the World Cup in Qatar has finished and many teams are already counting to go to the round of 16. The surprises of Saudi Arabia or Japan against Argentina or Germany, respectively, have caused their groups to be red hot. Both their fans and the rival countries are using the calculator to see what they need to qualify. But there can be a situation, that there are several teams tied on points in the standings after the three games. Now, FIFA has a solution (or many) for that case.

The World Cup group stage qualifying system is very simple. Only the first two of each group pass. There is no more mystery nor is it far-fetched (in the Eurocup the best third parties are classified). And, therefore, the first criterion is also easy: those who achieve the most points in the three games that are played, go to the next round. The problem comes when it comes to clarifying who is ahead in the event of a tie on points. The first tie-breaker is the goal difference in the group itself. That is, the subtraction between the conceded and the received, who has a better result will have preference in the classification with respect to another team that has the same number of points. For this reason, the goals of teams like England or Spain have a lot of advantage when it comes to a hypothetical tie in their group. Just like it is also very important to keep your back and not concede goals that could pose a problem in the last matchday. What gives more value to the result of Luis Enrique compared to that of Southgate.

If the tie persists even with that criterion, several options will be sought to break it. The second option will be to give priority to the team that has scored the most goals in the group matches. That is to say, in this case the conceded ones are no longer taken into account, but only the annotated ones. If it still persists, the points obtained between the matched teams will be looked at as the first option; in case of being in a tie, The goal difference between the teams involved will be considered. If there is still no solution, there will be three more ways: look who has scored more goals among the teams involved and the points for sportsmanship (A yellow is a negative point; a red for a double yellow is three; a direct expulsion, four; yellow and direct red, five). In case of exhausting all the above options, FIFA will have to break the tie with a toss.

tie-breaking criteria