Welcome to day 27 of the 2026 World Cup finals.
We are aiming to bring you a daily round up of the matches to come and recent results.
There were 48 countries at these 2026 World Cup finals, the most there has ever been. The matches to take place across Mexico, Canada and the USA.
We were left with 32 countries for the knockouts after 16 were eliminated in the group stage.
The 16 eliminated at the end of the group stage were: Czech Republic, Qatar, Haiti, Turkey, Curacao, Tunisia, New Zealand, Uruguay, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Panama, Uzbekistan, Scotland, Iran and South Korea.
Then you can add Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Paraguay, Australia, Cape Verde, Ghana, Croatia, Algeria, Austria, DR Congo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Senegal, Sweden, Ecuador, Ivory Coast, South Africa. Netherlands, Germany and Japan to that list as they exited in the rounds of 32 and 16.
The USA and Portugal have now been added to make it 38 knocked out, with just 10 countries remaining as possible winners of the 2026 World Cup.
Spain v Portugal was the archetypal looks great on paper match that turns into a non-event.
Two teams that became so scared to concede that they were too scared to try and attack to any great extent. When this happens you rely on an earlyish goal to force a watchable contest and if Oyarzabal has scored in the third minute that might have made this match very different.
The Spanish striker though put his effort wide when played through and then apart from an excellent double save by Costa to keep out Lamine Yamal and Alex Baena it wasn’t great. Nuno Mendes saw a 41st minute shot take a deflection off Pedro Porro and hit the crossbar but the half-time whistle blew without a goal.
The second half was even worse and then just when it look like extra time was inevitable, the 91st minute saw a quality Ferran Torres pass play in Mikel Merino and the former Newcastle United star with a cool quality finish to win the match. You have to wonder that with Portugal offering so little threat, if Ronaldo had accepted a role as impact sub off the bench instead of strolling around from the first whistle waiting for the ball up front, whether things could have been different.
Spain will now play Belgium in the quarter-finals on Friday and the Trump/Infantino shenanigans massively backfiring on the USA team. Folarin Balogun did start but clearly the furore negatively impacted on both the USA striker and his teammates. They were so poor whilst Belgium clearly inspired due to a sense of injustice, rising above the mediocrity of their performances so far, whilst the tournament co-hosts did the opposite.
Neither Donald Trump nor Cristiano Ronaldo will be having any say on the 2030 World Cup finals by the time they come round and hopefully that will be the same with Gianni Infantino.
We now have the final two last 16 matches to decide the final quarter-final.
At 5pm (UK Time) it will be billed as Messi v Salah with Argentina expected to defeat Egypt. Argentina will deservedly be favourites but I haven’t seen much star quality from them and interesting to see how they react if Egypt can score first.
Colombia won 3-1 against Uzbekistan in their opening group match but since then have scored only two goals in three games against DR Congo, Portugal and Ghana, though they haven’t conceded in this trio of matches. If Colombia score first then it could be a long match for Switzerland and the news that the Swiss are missing a number of key players due to injury including Newcastle United target Johan Manzambi doesn’t bode well. Hopefully Switzerland can score first and make this a far better watch.
It is now 275 goals in 94 matches and this 2026 World Cup not far short of averaging three goals per game for the first time since the 1958 World Cup but the chances of it happening are now reducing in the knockout stages. The closest since 1958 was the 1970 Mexico World Cup that averaged 2.97 goals per match, this 2026 World Cup now averaging 2.93 goals per game after the first 94 matches. There are now only 10 games left to play (including the third-place play-off match).
Here are the round of 16 results and remaining games to be played to decide the quarter-finalists (plus the three quarter-finals already confirmed), all kick-offs are shown as UK times and with the channel that is showing them.
Round of 16 knockout fixtures and results
Saturday 4 July
Canada 0 Morocco 3
France 1 Paraguay 0
Sunday 5 July
Brazil 1 Norway 2
Monday 6 July
Mexico 2 England 3
Portugal 0 Spain 1
Tuesday 7 July
USA 1 Belgium 4
Argentina v Egypt 5pm (ITV1)
Colombia v Switzerland 9pm (ITV1)
Quarter-finals
Thursday 9 July
France v Morocco 9pm (TBC TV)
Friday 10 July
Spain v Belgium 8pm (TBC TV)
Saturday 11 July
Norway v England 10pm (TBC TV)
Sunday 12 July
Argentina or Egypt v Switzerland or Colombia 2am (TBC TV)
Here is the full 2026 World Cup schedule:
Enjoy!