The first 48-team World Cup, 104 matches across 16 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It opened goalless at the Estadio Azteca and ended with Spain beating Argentina 1-0 in extra time at MetLife Stadium, in a final where Argentina did not have a shot in ninety minutes. All three host nations were out before the quarter-finals. Paraguay knocked out Germany on penalties. Nearly 6.9 million people came through the gates, more than any tournament ever played.
The first match of the first 48-team World Cup was goalless. Mexico and South Korea played out a nil-nil at the Estadio Azteca on 11 June in front of 80,824 people, and the Azteca became the only ground to have staged matches at three separate World Cups. Forty-eight teams, sixteen cities, three countries, 104 matches. Nobody knew yet whether the expanded format would produce a month of one-sided results or the opposite. It produced the opposite.
Scotland had not been to a World Cup since 1998. They beat Haiti and topped Group C, and the Tartan Army arrived in numbers that surprised the host cities, which had not planned for a support that travels in five figures for a group game. For a country that had watched every tournament since 1998 from its own living rooms, the group stage was the achievement. The knockouts were an argument for another day.
The argument against expansion was that forty-eight teams would mean a fortnight of six-goal walkovers. It did not happen. Australia beat Turkey 2-0. Qatar took a point off Switzerland in a 1-1 draw, the first point the country has ever taken at a World Cup. Morocco held Brazil 1-1. France won Group I with three wins and ten goals, Argentina took Group K unbeaten with eight, and Spain came through Group H having conceded nothing at all. The favourites still looked like favourites. They just stopped being able to assume anything.
On 25 June, with the group stage not yet finished, the tournament passed 3,587,538 spectators and took the record for the best-attended World Cup ever played. That figure had belonged to the United States in 1994 and had stood for thirty-two years. It finished on 6,810,966, which is not a broken record so much as a different order of magnitude. Part of that is 104 matches against 64. Most of it is that the matches were played in stadiums built for a bigger sport.
28 June, SoFi Stadium. Canada beat South Africa 1-0 in the first match of the new knockout round. Stephen Eustaquio scored in the second minute of stoppage time in front of 69,237 people. It was the last thing that went right for a host nation. Over the next six days the round of 32 removed Germany, Japan, Senegal, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Croatia, Algeria, Australia and Ghana. Four ties went to extra time and three to penalties. The round that critics said would be a formality produced more shootouts than the 2022 knockout stage managed in total.
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, 29 June. Kai Havertz scored on 54 minutes to cancel out Julio Enciso on 42. Nothing else went in across ninety minutes and extra time, and Paraguay won the shootout 4-3. • Result: Germany 1-1 Paraguay, Paraguay win 4-3 on penalties • Round: round of 32, the extra knockout round the 48-team format created • After: Paraguay met France in the last 16 on 4 July in Philadelphia and lost 1-0 Four-time champions, out at the first knockout hurdle, in the round that would not have existed under the old format.
Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, 3 July. Cape Verde, one of the smallest countries ever to qualify for a World Cup, finished second in Group H behind Spain and drew the holders in the round of 32. They lost 3-2, and only after extra time. • Result: Argentina 3-2 Cape Verde after extra time, attendance 64,478 • Elsewhere that day: Colombia beat Ghana 1-0 in Kansas City; Egypt put Australia out 4-2 on penalties • The point: the champions needed 120 minutes against a nation of half a million people
5 July. Norway beat Brazil 2-1 in the round of 16, in Erling Haaland's first World Cup and Norway's first appearance at one since 1998. Brazil had come through the round of 32 by beating Japan 2-1 with a Martinelli goal in the fifth minute of stoppage time, which was the warning nobody read. Norway went out to England in the quarter-finals, 2-1 after extra time. Between the two matches they had knocked out the Ivory Coast and Brazil, which is a better tournament than most of the seeded sides managed.
Round of 16, 4 to 6 July. No World Cup had ever reached the quarter-finals without at least one host nation in it. This one did, and it took three days. • 4 July, Houston: Canada 0-3 Morocco • 5 July, Mexico City: Mexico 2-3 England • 6 July, Seattle: United States 1-4 Belgium The tournament had been sold to three governments on the promise of a summer built around their own teams. From 6 July the host cities were staging somebody else's tournament, and the attendance figures did not drop.
9 to 11 July. Two of the four went to extra time. The two that did not were won by the sides that reached the final. • 9 July, Foxborough: France 2-0 Morocco. Mbappe and Dembele ended the run of the last African team standing • 10 July, Inglewood: Spain 2-1 Belgium • 11 July, Kansas City: Argentina 3-1 Switzerland after extra time • 11 July, Miami Gardens: Norway 1-2 England after extra time Norway had beaten Brazil 2-1 in the last 16 four days earlier. Erling Haaland went home in the quarter-finals of his first World Cup.
AT&T Stadium, Arlington, 14 July. Spain controlled it from the start and won 2-0 to reach their first final since 2010. • Spain's route: first in Group H, then Austria 3-0, Portugal 1-0, Belgium 2-1 • France's route: Sweden 3-0, Paraguay 1-0, Morocco 2-0, and then nothing • Mbappe: still finished the tournament as its top scorer
Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, 15 July. England led 1-0 with the game in its closing stages. Argentina scored twice and won 2-1. • England's route: DR Congo 2-1, Mexico 3-2, Norway 2-1 after extra time, under Thomas Tuchel • Argentina's route: Cape Verde 3-2 after extra time, Egypt 3-2, Switzerland 3-1 after extra time • What followed: Tuchel's caution in the last twenty minutes was the subject of every English back page for a week Three of Argentina's four knockout wins needed a late goal or extra time. It is a route that says less about dominance than about a team that does not lose.
Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, 18 July. The third-place play-off is the fixture both sides would rather skip. France and England scored ten goals in it. England won 6-4. • Result: France 4-6 England, third place to England • The record: Mbappe finished on 10 goals, becoming the World Cup's all-time leading scorer and the first man to win two Golden Boots • Final order: Spain, Argentina, England, France
MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, 19 July. Ferran Torres headed in a Nico Williams cross on 106 minutes. Spain won their second World Cup, sixteen years after the first. • Result: Spain 1-0 Argentina after extra time. Attendance 80,663, referee Slavko Vincic of Slovenia • The scorer: Ferran Torres, 106th minute, man of the match • The turn: Enzo Fernandez sent off in the second half, Argentina down to ten • The statistic: Argentina did not register a single shot in regulation time. No team had ever done that in a World Cup final • Emiliano Martinez: 11 saves, the most anyone has made in a final, which is the only reason the match went to extra time • What Spain now hold: the men's and women's World Cups at the same time, the first country to do it The interval ran past twenty-seven minutes because FIFA staged the first halftime show in the history of a World Cup final, with Shakira, Madonna, BTS and Justin Bieber. IFAB protocol allows fifteen. A brawl between the two squads broke out after the whistle. Both are now part of the record of the match, which is not how anyone drew it up.
The first 48-team World Cup was the biggest on every measure anyone counted, and the best attended tournament the sport has ever staged. • Scale: 104 matches, 16 cities, three countries • Attendance: 6,810,966, an average of 65,490 a match. The 1994 record had stood for thirty-two years and fell on 25 June, with a fortnight still to play • Goals: 308, at 2.96 a match, the highest rate since 1970 • Revenue: a reported 15 billion dollars • Golden Boot: Kylian Mbappe, 10 goals in 769 minutes. Silver to Lionel Messi on 8, bronze to Jude Bellingham on 7 • Golden Ball: Rodri, ahead of Messi and Mbappe • Golden Glove: Unai Simon. Young Player: Pau Cubarsi. Fair Play: Netherlands Three of the four individual awards went to Spain. The scoring rate that the expanded format was supposed to dilute came out higher than any tournament since 1970.