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Morocco can finally avenge 2022 because this is no longer the same team France beat in Qatar. The Atlas Lions have climbed from 27th to 9th in possession under a new coach, added a Real Madrid creator and a teenager who snubbed France itself, and arrive on a 10-match unbeaten run since winning the AFCON. France still hold every historical advantage on paper, but Morocco’s ceiling has never been higher heading into a rematch four years in the making, and the whole country knows it.

The numbers say the criticism was half right. Cristiano Ronaldo created zero chances from 17 shots across five matches, backing up the complaints about his positioning against DR Congo and Colombia. But he also scored three goals at 41, his second-best return in six World Cups, and became the first player to find the net in six separate editions of the tournament. Portugal’s run ended against Spain in the Round of 16, and the underlying numbers explain both sides of a debate that split fans and pundits through the whole tournament.

France are closest to breaking their own record, not anyone else’s. Les Bleus have scored 14 goals through five matches at the 2026 World Cup, the highest team total in the field, and need nine more across three remaining games to beat Just Fontaine’s 23-goal haul from 1958. Every other landmark, including Hungary’s mark of 27 from 1954, sits further out of reach. With Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé leading a prolific attack, the numbers say this squad has a genuine shot at rewriting its own history.

Goals get replayed on every highlight reel. The passes that created them rarely do. Olise, Guimarães and Díaz have carried their nations through the knockout rounds on vision most fans never notice, while Mbappé, Messi and Haaland collect the headlines on seven goals apiece. The imbalance in coverage isn’t accidental, and it isn’t going away anytime soon. Football built an entire award around scoring and nothing equivalent for creating, so the players quietly deciding matches still get treated as footnotes to someone else’s celebration.

Manzambi’s route to goal is what makes him dangerous: he arrives late from midfield, into space no marker is assigned to track. Colombia’s back four has conceded once in four matches, but nobody they’ve faced moves through the lines quite like the Freiburg midfielder. That gap between a settled low block and a box-to-box runner is exactly where Tuesday’s Round of 16 tie in Vancouver could be decided, and it’s the one problem Lorenzo’s defence hasn’t yet had to solve.

Argentina needed 120 minutes, and an own goal, to get past Cape Verde, a scoreline that looked nothing like the tournament favourites many expected in Miami. Nobody doubts the attacking quality that got them there, but the defending is a different question heading into Atlanta. Egypt arrive with three headed goals from set pieces already, the joint-most in the competition, and a genuinely coached aerial routine built to exploit exactly the kind of fatigue Argentina’s back line is carrying into Tuesday.

Every storyline heading into Dallas has centered on Ronaldo and Yamal, a 41-year-old captain likely playing his last World Cup against an 18-year-old already among the tournament’s best. That framing is fair, but the contest most likely to decide Monday’s Round of 16 tie sits somewhere else entirely: in the space Spain’s attacking fullbacks leave behind them every time they push forward, a habit that has worked perfectly so far against opponents lacking the pace to properly punish it, but Portugal are built differently.

Julio Enciso is the answer, and he might be the only one Paraguay have. France arrive in Philadelphia unbeaten, averaging almost nine shots on target a game, and have not stopped scoring since the group stage began. Paraguay have produced one genuine route to goal all tournament, and it belongs to their 22-year-old forward. He created both group-stage goals, then headed in the equaliser that eventually beat Germany on penalties. Everything Paraguay create going forward starts and ends with him, and Saturday’s outcome now hinges on his fitness.

Canada have taken more shots on target than any other team left in the draw, twenty-eight in four matches, yet they have scored only twice across their last two games. That gap between chances created and chances finished is the real story heading into Houston, not Morocco’s unbeaten run. Stephen Eustaquio’s stoppage-time volley got Jesse Marsch’s side out of the group stage for the first time in program history, but volume alone will not be enough against a defence that has conceded just four goals all tournament.

Cape Verde is not supposed to be here. A nation of roughly 530,000 people, making its World Cup debut, has reached the round of 32 without winning a single game so far. Three draws against Spain, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia were enough to get them there. Now the Blue Sharks face Lionel Messi’s Argentina in Miami, and the real question isn’t whether the fairytale was real, but whether the mechanism behind it can survive one more test against a far sharper attacking side.

Colombia arrive in Kansas City as one of the form teams of the tournament, unbeaten and having conceded a single goal across three group games so far. Ghana arrive as the lowest-ranked team left in the draw, a side that only secured its spot as one of the best third-placed finishers in the competition. On paper this looks like a mismatch. In practice, Ghana’s defensive record and their history of shutting down bigger nations make this far less one-sided than the seeding alone suggests.

Croatia’s history of grinding out results against bigger squads is why Thursday’s Round of 32 tie at BMO Field isn’t the mismatch the depth chart suggests. Both sides finished second in their groups: Portugal behind Colombia, Croatia behind England. Portugal’s own group stage already showed how uncomfortable they get against patient, disciplined defending, and that pattern hasn’t gone away since. The real question is which Croatia shows up on Thursday, the one that suffocated Brazil in 2022, or the one that shipped four goals to England three weeks ago.