The 2023 World Cup is going to see plenty of changes, and that will become clear when tiebreakers inevitably come into play.
For the first time in the tournament’s history, 32 teams will compete at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The format — eight groups of four with two teams advancing from each group — will mirror what we’ve seen in recent men’s World Cup group stages. Teams receive three points for a win, one for a draw and none for loss. The top two teams from each group move on. And with that, FIFA has carried over the same tiebreakers that we saw in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
While the knockout stage is straightforward single elimination, the group stage could get complicated as the teams battle for a place in the round of 16.
Let’s break down how the tiebreakers will work.
1. Goal differential
The first tiebreaker is simple enough. You subtract goals scored against goals allowed, and the team with the better differential moves on. For example, Italy won Group C in 2019 by virtue of goal differential.
Odds are you’ll see this tiebreaker come into play at the World Cup with the newly expanded field.
2. Goals scored
If teams are tied in points and goal differential, FIFA then continues to greater number of goals scored to break the tie. That gives teams the incentive to keep scoring goals in lopsided games because they never know if tiebreakers will come into play.
3. Head-to-head performance
If it’s a two-way tie, the winner of the head-to-head match moves on. If that head-to-head match was a tie, we’ll proceed to tiebreaker No. 6. And it’s a wild one.
If we’re looking at a three-way tie at this point, the standings are recalculated to just the matches involving the tied teams. The team with the highest total points in the recalculated standings will advance. If it’s *still* a tie, we move on to the next tiebreaker.
4. Goal differential in matches between tied teams
This tiebreaker only works for a three-way tie because, well, the winner of a head-to-head match in a two-way tie would naturally have the better differential. So again, this tiebreaker reduces the standings to just the matches involving the three tied teams. The team with the best goal differential from those games moves on.
5. Goals scored in matches between the tied teams
If the three teams somehow had the same goal differentials in all the head-to-head matches, the team that scored the most goals in those matches between the tied teams will move on. It’s incredibly rare for a three-way tie to get beyond this point.
6. Fair Play tiebreaker
Though this is super rare, we’ve seen this tiebreaker come into play in the men’s tournament with two-way ties. Basically, if all the other tiebreakers are exhausted without a winner, the team with the better disciplinary record in the group stage moves on.
For this World Cup, FIFA will calculate its Fair Play points as follows:
– Yellow card – minus 1 point
– Indirect red card (as a result of two yellow cards) – minus 3 points
– Direct red card – minus 4 points
– Yellow card and a direct red card – 5 points
The team with the highest total in Fair Play points would move on, essentially leaving a tournament fate to the referee’s discretion. No team wants to get to that point, but the tiebreakers do get worse.
7. LOL drawing lots
At this point, FIFA has run out of ideas even though there are other ways that would make sense (least goals conceded, saves, goals from open play). That lack of imagination would bring us to a random drawing where the organizing committee would draw a team from a bowl.
Let’s hope we never have this drawing take place because it would just be incredibly unfair to any team involved.
