Welcome to day nine 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 are 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.
The 48 teams are divided into 12 groups of four, with the top two in each group automatically going through and the eight best performing teams who finish third in their groups.
So only 16 of the 48 countries will be knocked out after the 72 group games have all played out, with the other 32 teams going through to the knockout stages.
We have now reached a point where we are more than a third of the way through the 72 group games with 28 played. That means 78 games in total still to go when you include the knockout stages.
A poor game saw the Czech Republic take a sixth minute lead and look to be cruising. Only to see South Africa get a draw seven minutes from time when awarded a penalty for a dubious handball.
Also not the greatest of games at the Los Angeles Stadium until Switzerland scored on 74 minutes to make it 1-0. From that point a far different match and a great watch as Bosnia had a player sent off with ten minutes to go and that was followed by four more goals. Quite extraordinary that this one ended 4-1 to Switzerland after so little had happened for 70+ minutes.
Maybe the occasion had got to hosts Canada when only drawing against Bosnia in their opening group match but they made no mistake this time.
The tournament’s co-hosts 2-0 up inside half an hour, followed by red cards for Qatar both before and after the break, the second one sadly seeing Kone suffer a bad injury and stretchered off.
Canada ending up with six goals in the end but it should really have been double figures, in total Qatar had 32 shots and 19 corners, spending almost the entire match defending their penalty area with ever decreasing numbers.
That means Canada (Jesse Marsch and his players celebrating in the image at the top of this article) are surely qualifying for the knockouts with four points from two games.
Co-hosts Mexico (pictured celebrating below) are now the first team that has mathematically qualified for the last 32, a goal from Romo on 50 minutes enough to beat South Korea and Mexico six points from two matches.
It is now 89 goals in 28 matches and this 2026 World Cup still on track to average three or more goals per game for the first time since the 1958 World Cup. The closest was the 1970 Mexico World Cup that averaged 2.97 goals per match, this 2026 World Cup now averaging 3.17 goals per game.
The next six matches to be played across Friday and Saturday are detailed below, all kick-offs are shown as UK times and with the channel that is showing them.
Wednesday 17 June
Argentina 3 Algeria 0 Group J
Austria 3 Jordan 1 Group J
Portugal 1 DR Congo 1 Group K
England 4 Croatia 2 Group L
Thursday 18 June
Ghana 1 Panama 0 Group L
Uzbekistan 1 Colombia 3 Group K
Czech Republic 1 South Africa 1 Group A
Switzerland 4 Bosnia-Herzegovina 1 Group B
Canada 6 Qatar 0 Group B
Friday 19 June
Mexico 1 South Africa 0 Group A
USA v Australia 8pm (BBC1) Group D
Scotland v Morocco 11pm (ITV1) Group C
Saturday 20 June
Brazil v Haiti 2am (ITV1) Group C
Turkey v Paraguay 5am (ITV1) Group D
Netherlands v Sweden 6pm (BBC1) Group F
Germany v Ivory Coast 9pm (ITV1) Group E