\n
Of the 12 teams that will finish in third place, eight will progress. That equates to exactly two-thirds.<\/p>\n
To offer an accurate as possible comparison, in the 32-team era, this would have roughly equated to the five best third-placed teams.<\/p>\n
In the seven previous tournaments, going back to 1998, each time the fifth-best third-placed team finished with at least three points: Colombia (1998), Portugal (2002), Poland (2006), Ivory Coast (2010 and 2014), Nigeria (2018), Tunisia (2022).<\/p>\n
Therefore, goal difference could play a major factor in determining matters this year.<\/p>\n
In 1998, three points and a -2 goal difference was enough for Colombia to be one of the five best third-placed teams. In 2006, Poland finished the tournament as the fifth-best third-place side with three points and a -2 goal difference.<\/p>\n
Ivory Coast finished as the fifth-best third-place finishers in 2010 with three points and a +1 goal difference. Whereas in 2002, Portugal finished with a +2 goal difference on three points as the fifth-best third-placed team.<\/p>\n
In 2022, there was a three-way tie for the fifth-best third-placed team: Tunisia, Cameroon and Uruguay all finished on four points and a level goal difference, with one win, one draw and one defeat each from their three group stage matches.<\/p>\n
With 12 groups instead of eight at this tournament, there is room for a broader range of results but if recent history suggests anything, it is that teams should not rely on three points being enough to progress – and that goal difference will be key.<\/p>\n
In 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022, there were 13 third-placed teams who finished on three points but were not among the top five third-place finishers.<\/p>\n
This article is the latest from BBC Sport’s Ask Me Anything<\/i><\/a> team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of the 12 teams that will finish in third place, eight will progress. That equates to exactly two-thirds. To offer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}