This bracket is an unofficial projection of the 2026 FIFA World Cup knockout stage, generated entirely from FIFA ranking positions. Higher-ranked teams are assumed to finish higher in their groups, win playoff paths, and advance through the knockout rounds.
For groups, I placed teams according to their relative FIFA rankings within each group (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th). For teams that have not yet qualified and must go through playoff paths, I ranked the potential contenders and assigned qualification to the highest-ranked team in each path.
The knockout bracket follows the official 2026 matchups (e.g., 1E vs 3D, 1I vs 3G, etc.). For third-place teams, I compared all group third-place finishers by FIFA ranking and selected the eight highest-ranked to advance, assigning them to bracket positions using the standard FIFA mapping.
Posted by Purple_Topic_1459
21 Comments
Insert comment about FIFA
So Spain vs Argentina in the final!
I’m not sure if I would be sad or happy if Brazil is eliminated by Japan.
I’m brazilian btw.
There’s no point in doing this cause the groups basically never go as expected
Oh god germany against france. We are soo cooked. I am not expecting any surprises. We curbstopm australia and then france curbstomps us. C´est la vie.
Why would they set it up to have hosts play each other in the first knockout round
Wait, Senegal is the only sub Saharan country
So a potential list 16 match against Mexico for England, if it’s in Mexico that will be an unbelievably tough game to say the least.
Why is this in /r/dataisbeautiful? This is just /r/datais
Netherlands-Morocco would be a disaster for some dutch cities.
That’s an awful lot of messing to determine who will lose to Ireland in the final
Canada vs US 😆That’ll be a fun oneÂ
Wayyyyyy too early. Some teams that haven’t even qualified yet to the World Cup are expected to make it out of the group stage?
We all know that the true winner in our hearts is Donny for receiving the world famous FIFA peace prize!
I thought Brazil was garbage now and the European teams were good. Is that not the case? How does bracket make sense? Are there no seeds?
I have a feeling Portugal will win.
What the hell is Italy doing here. Their rank should be in 100
Norway is the only country that has played and never lost against Brazil. Their record is 2 wins and 2 draws. If Norway gets 2nd place in their group, they might face each other again.
that projection seems off to me. Think about it: all these powerhouse European teams getting knocked out early? Dunno bout that, chief
USA fans are clenching their asses in fear seeing that they might have to play Canada
The changes to the tournament are going to make the group stage games less exciting. Most teams will lose in the knockout stage, which I guess is cool, but they could organize it another way.