After increasing the number of teams participating in the World Cup to 48 teams, not only will the top two teams from each of the 12 groups in the first round qualify, but also the best eight teams that finished third.
As the outlines become a bit clearer in the groups of the tournament held in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, calculators are starting to be used to determine the minimum required to qualify for the Round of 32.
This is only the second time that a tournament organized by FIFA features such a large number of teams, with the previous experience limited to the Under-17 World Cup held in Qatar last November.
However, this is not the first time that third-placed teams in the group stage of a tournament have the opportunity to qualify.
This practice dates back to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, which was the first tournament to see the best four third-placed teams from the six groups qualify for the knockout stages alongside the teams finishing first and second. This occurred in an era when two points were awarded for a win instead of three, but a study covering 38 FIFA tournaments and continental tournaments that featured 24 teams, where four spots were available for the best third-placed teams, gives some indications regarding the number of points required to qualify for the knockout stages.
Never has a team that accumulated five points from its three group matches finished outside the top two spots in its group.
Additionally, it has only happened twice that a team accumulated four points and finished third in its group without qualifying, both instances occurring in the Under-20 World Cup. Norway finished last in its group in the 1994 World Cup with four points, as did Ukraine in the European Championship held in Germany two years ago.
The success rate of teams finishing their first-round matches with three points is just under 50 percent, but those teams almost all had a positive goal difference. Conversely, acquiring three points with a negative goal difference reduces a team's chances of qualifying to about one in three. The only exception was Norway in the Under-20 World Cup in 2019, as they were eliminated despite having a positive goal difference of eight, which included a win of 12-0 against Honduras where Erling Haaland scored nine goals. In last year's Under-17 World Cup held in Qatar, featuring 48 teams, four out of six teams that finished third in their groups qualified with three points each.
In only two of the tournaments included in the survey, where three points are awarded for a win, did one team manage to qualify among the best four third-placed teams after accumulating only two points, the second instance being Tanzania in the Africa Cup of Nations held in Morocco late last year.