With the games continuing to come thick and fast, the World Cup 2022 group stage will be over before we know it. In fact, after Senegal's 3-1 victory over Qatar – who became the first hosts to be knocked out of the World Cup after two matches – we are a third of the way through the 48 fixtures which make up the first round of the tournament.
So it's impossible not to pore over the various permutations... Who will go through? What do team X and team Y need to do to go through?
Of course, as everyone knows, the easiest way to book your place in the last 16 is by winning all your group games – but it goes without saying that only one team per group can do that, so there's always a pretty good chance that tiebreakers will come into play.
What are the 2022 World Cup group stage tiebreakers?
If two (or, as unlikely as it is, more) teams finish the group stage level on points, the first means of separating them is good old-fashioned goal difference (across their respective three group games); that's followed by goals scored.
Failing the above, the same tiebreakers are applied but on a head-to-head basis (i.e. in games between the sides in question). And failing that, it comes down to fair play record: every team starts on zero points, and loses one point for each yellow card; three points for each red card for two bookings; four points for each straight red card; and five points if a player somehow manages to get booked and straight red-carded in the group stage. Senegal were eliminated by this method in Russia four years ago, losing out to Japan by two fair play points.
Should things still be deadlocked, though, there's only one thing for it: the drawing of lots to see who advances. Unsurprisingly, this has rarely happened at a World Cup – with the last instance coming at Italia '90, when they were needed to split the Netherlands and Republic of Ireland (albeit only to decide who progressed in which position, as those finals saw some third-placed finishers make the knockout stage).
