Football journalist and author Guillem Balagué digs deep to answer the question: why is this World Cup different?
I was watching the Cabo Verde players after they qualified from the group stage. They were in a circle, arms around each other, chanting “one per cent, one per cent.” That was the probability someone had given them of making it out of the groups, and there they were, dancing their way into the knockout rounds.
Cabo Verde are the story of this tournament. But I wanted to go beyond that. I wanted to understand why that story was possible. Because it isn’t just Cape Verde, is it? Ghana, South Africa, Bosnia — three of the lowest-ranked teams at this World Cup have made it through. That is not a coincidence. So over the last few days I spoke to Pep Segura, Miguel Cardoso and David Martinez — between them a lifetime of football knowledge across five continents — and I asked three questions. Why are teams becoming more equal? Why are there so many goals? And why are the biggest stars shining so brightly? The answers led me to a few more questions I hadn’t planned on asking.
Why are teams becoming more equal?
The short answer is globalisation — but that word gets thrown around so lazily that it has almost lost its meaning. Let me be more specific.
The players in the Bosnia squad, the Morocco squad, the Japan squad — many of them play in the top European leagues. They arrive at the World Cup having absorbed elite tactical habits, elite physical demands, elite mentalities. When they return to their national teams, they bring all of that with them.
Every national team now also has access to analysts, video technology, data. The information gap that used to separate the big nations from the smaller ones has essentially closed. You can study Brazil’s pressing triggers from a laptop in Praia.
There are simply more established football nations than there used to be. Morocco, Japan, South Korea, the USA, Ecuador — these are not underdogs anymore. They are teams that consistently compete with and beat the traditional favourites. The group of nations operating at a level very close to the established powers has grown enormously, and the result is far more competitive matches than in any previous World Cup.
There is something else. The physical dimension of the modern game has become so dominant that it is levelling things out. When physical intensity becomes the baseline, collective organisation can compensate for individual quality. A deep, dense defensive block — done properly — can neutralise almost anyone. Congo, Cape Verde, Curaçao showed that against much stronger opponents.
With 48 teams, 32 qualify for the knockout stage. You could look at Ghana, Cabo Verde and South Africa making it through and think: well, of course — it is easier to qualify now. And you would not be entirely wrong. The bar is lower than it used to be. But that would be too convenient an explanation, and it would sell these teams short. They are not here because the door was left open — they are genuinely better than their predecessors were.
So on one hand, with more teams comes more mismatches. The gap between the very best sides and the genuine debutants can still produce high-scoring matches. The great teams still win, but they have to work much harder in that final phase, that last third, to break down very organised deep defences of modest nations. Creating and finishing actions is where the gap now shows itself — and preparing a team for them is the hardest thing to train. In fact it is a phase of the game that is hardly worked on at national level.
And yet there is a counter-trend forming. Precisely because teams are becoming more equal, coaches are now hunting for players who can win one versus one. The individual is coming back. The collective brought everyone closer together, and now the individual is being asked to separate them again.
Why so many goals?
This is the highest-scoring World Cup in at least five editions. It is also, according to some metrics, the fastest-scoring in history. Why?
The bigger factor might be structural. Football has shifted culturally and commercially towards attack. Fans demand it, broadcasters demand it, and coaches have responded. Even defenders are now evaluated partly on their offensive contribution.
Also, it is a short tournament where one mistake sends you home and one goal changes your life, so teams are attacking to influence the outlook.
Many national teams press high, but without the daily repetition of club training, that pressing is often uncoordinated and can be punished. Without that daily application to an idea, sometimes the structure breaks down.
Then there are the hydration breaks. They were introduced quietly, without any debate, by bureaucratic imposition, and yet they are changing matches. They give managers a moment mid-half to reorganise, to adjust, to calm emotions, to shift the team’s shape. I think they benefit attacking teams. After a rest, high-tempo sides can go again with fresher legs, and forwards — who tend to arrive as substitutes — stay sharper in the decisive moments. Substitute attackers have scored over 21% of all goals at this tournament.
Matches are also running longer now — regularly past 100 minutes with extended added time. Tired legs make defensive errors. Late equalisers are following.
Why are the stars so dominant?
The top of the goalscoring list reads like a football Olympus: Messi, Vini, Haaland, Mbappe, Dembele, and not far Kane, Oyarzabal. The expanded format gives elite players more matches against weaker opposition in the early rounds, but I feel there is something deeper.
These players spend the entire club year knowing the World Cup is coming. They prepare for it psychologically. They want the stage. At club level there is a system, a manager, a tactical frame. At the World Cup, the best players take more individual risks because this is the showcase that defines legacies. They know it, the crowd knows it, and the football reflects it wonderfully.
One more question
There is something I keep coming back to. The last new World Cup winner was Spain in 2010. Since then, it has been Germany, France, Argentina — all previous winners. This tournament has already produced upsets, surprises, new stories. So let me ask: are we heading towards a new name on the trophy? The equalisation of football, the rise of the emerging nations, the unpredictability of the knockout format — all of it points in one direction.
The one per cent teams are pushing everyone, including the ones that have not won the tournament yet, to get closer to one hundred.
