The Knock Out Stages & Round of 16 Explained

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Before I introduce the FIFA Knock Out Stages chart, the excitement in Qatar is reaching us here as the countdown to the kick-off of the 2022 FIFA World Cup begins. I’ve been to Doha many times (the airport that is). Except for one memorable trip, I was traveling with two other 15/16 year olds and our connecting flight back to Australia was cancelled. Qatar Air transferred us to a local hotel and we spent six or seven hours keeping a low profile. We were then transported back to the airport for our re-scheduled flight home. I couldn’t help but be struck by the distinct dress of both the men and the women. It was eye-opening and because I was young and a relatively inexperienced traveler, I admit to finding the experience a bit of an ordeal.

Nevertheless, the Qataris are bound to put on a good show as the whole world watches over the coming few weeks. We’ve already seen the issues around removing the Heineken from the Stadiums. I hope that the football is the star of the show for those even so.

No game this week

We have a well-deserved rest this week. Training continued as usual, and I joined my university futsal team and my residence also has a football team. So I indulged my love of football all week!

– 2022 November 19th

The FIFA 2022 World Cup Knock Out Stages Explained

Ok punters! Everyone loves to predict who will go through to the Round of 16, to the Quarter Finals, to the Semis and ultimately be the winner of the World Cup

I’ve put together a simple graphic to help with predicting who will meet with who in the Round of 16.

The FIFA 2022 World Cup Knock Out Stages

The Round of 16: Worked Example

Take the United States for example.

Firstly, we have the Group Stage. I’ve given the exact schedule of the games for Group B on the ETSY store so head over to there and download all the games for each Group.

Only two teams will progress from the group stage. I’ve called them 1B and 2B for Group B. You can see them on the Round of 16. Say, the United States finishes 2nd after the group stage, so insert the United States where you see 2B on the graph. At this point, you might want to speculate which team that will be. Let’s say it’s the Netherlands (1A).

In the Round of 16, Game 49 will then see the United States (2B) challenge the team with the most points from Group A (1A). The winner of Game 49, will then progress to play the winner of Game 50 in the Quarter Finals.

You might speculate that Game 50 is Denmark (2D) versus Argentina (1C), and you might further speculate that Argentina gets the best of Denmark in the Round of 16. So assuming the United States progress through, we now have an exciting Quarter Final match between the United States and Argentina.

FIFA Knock Out Stages can be brutal

Now that we’ve reached the Quarters in our hypothetical example, you can see the sheer size of the task ahead for the United States even if they can get through the Round of 16 through to the Quarters. And what are the chances of then going through to the Semis on the back of a win against Argentina? Swap out Argentina for Poland and the magic boots of “Lewy”. It still looks like a big ask.

Now say by some miracle, the United States are the winners of Game 58, they now come up against the winner of Game 57 – most likely FIFA World Cup 2022 #1 seed Brazil.

Getting to the Final may take a miracle

But miracle of miracles, United States gets the win and ends up playing their first World Cup final ever. They must now play the winner of Game 62. They might ironically need to play England again, who have also come through from Group B. There are numerous possibilities here (France, Portugal and so on) who have worked their way through to the Semis, even Brazil or Argentina if they finished 2nd at the Group Stage might now surface.

Wasn’t that fun? For those who like to predict, speculate or take the punt this chart will help you see the mountain that has to be climbed between exiting the Group Stage and winning the World Cup.

Let the games begin!

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