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Soccer is a game of failure — especially this summer.
Each game at the 2026 World Cup has featured about 80 possessions per team. And each team has scored about 1.5 goals per game. Those teams, in other words, are failing to score goals with 98% of their possessions.
Those teams generate only around 12 shots per game, so 85% of those possessions don’t lead to an attempt on goal. And even when they do, those shots fail to become goals 88% of the time.
But we all put up with the constant futility because there’s a likely payoff hidden behind all of these hopeless statistics, right? Right?
Yeah, um, not quite.
The biggest World Cup ever brings with it an even greater avalanche of failure. Of the 48 teams attempting to win the World Cup this summer, 47 (98%) will fail. Add up all of the World Cups this century, and come the end of this summer, 240 different groups of players will have tried to lift the World Cup — and 233 will have fallen short.
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Of course, not all failures are created equal. Injuries happen, refs make mistakes, arbitrarily drawn borders and random demographic patterns determine rosters, socioeconomic factors overwhelm tactics and the ball keeps bouncing.
So, from now until the end of the tournament, we will grade the 47 failures — continually updating this page, with the most recently eliminated teams listed first — based on a combination of pre-tournament expectations, in-tournament performance and frankly, whatever else is worth considering.
The grades will be on a traditional A-to-F scale. Yes, you can get an A for failing or an F for failing. I can’t think of a sentence that better sums up the World Cup than that.
All numbers come courtesy of the stats app Futi or Stats Perform data, unless otherwise noted. All projections cited come from Michael Caley’s PADDLIN’ model.
How they got eliminated: Last place in Group G
Final grade: C
They came into the tournament as the worst-rated team in their group, put up a fight against Iran and Egypt, and then got hammered by Belgium. That broad outline — expect nothing against Belgium, be competitive against the other two — would’ve been a realistic goal for the Kiwis to set. They gave themselves a chance for the bounces to go their way — and then the bounces did not go their way.
The big disappointment is that they had the lead against Iran twice and also opened the scoring against Egypt. And so the wait for their first World Cup win continues.
How they got eliminated: Last place in Group H
Final grade: D-
All Saudi Arabia had to do to advance to the round of 32 was beat a team from a country with a population of 530,000 people. Instead, even though the match ended scoreless, they got dominated by a team from a country with a population of 530,000 people.
The bigger the circle, the higher the expected-goal value of the chance:
At the time of their elimination, their 17 total shots attempted was the joint-fewest for teams that had played all three group stage games. It tied them with Qatar, hosts of the 2022 World Cup. Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup.
How they got eliminated: Third place in Group H
Final grade: F
After his team lost 5-1 to the United States in a friendly last November, Uruguay manager Marcelo Bielsa diagnosed the problem with his team: “I’m toxic. Being around me makes people worse.”
After his team lost 1-0 to Spain to seal their elimination from this summer’s World Cup, Bielsa summed up his two-year tenure as Uruguay manager: “I don’t need to speak any further about our performance at the World Cup. If you ask how they are going to remember me, they will remember me as having left nothing.”
I think it might be time to retire? Or start writing existentialist poetry? Uruguay’s only real gears at this tournament were “SMASH” or “SMASH HARDER.” Without some terrible errors from veteran keeper Fernando Muslera, they’d easily be on to the knockout rounds — but this team just didn’t have it.
After going down 1-0 to Spain in the 42nd minute of their final match, they attempted two total shots. My rankings, and Caley’s rankings, both had them 13th before the tournament began. They’re the “best” team to miss the knockout round.
How they got eliminated: Finished last in Group I
Final grade: C-
It was great to have Iraq back in the World Cup for the first time in 40 years, yet they were doomed from the start. Before the tournament, I’d ranked France as the best squad in the tournament, Norway ninth and Senegal 11th. That would be a rough knockout-round slate; it’s an impossible group stage schedule. We can’t really say that getting outscored by 12 goals to one is a success, but they got none of the luck they would’ve needed to find a way to the knockout rounds.
How they got eliminated: Finished last in Group E
Final grade: B
If your country only has 150,000 people in it, shouldn’t you get an A just for qualifying for the World Cup? Well, 25 of the 26 players on the team were born in the Netherlands, so it’s not quite true that 0.03% of the island’s male population was playing for the national team this summer.
But it also is true that a 37-year-old dude playing in the United Soccer League — the league below MLS — set the record for saves in a 90-minute World Cup match. The bigger the dot, the higher the expected goals value of the chance:
Based on the location of those 15 shots, we’d expect the average goalkeeper to concede 2.27 goals. Room, of course, conceded zero — against a team starting players from Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, and Chelsea. Up until the final whistle against Ivory Coast, Curacao somehow still had a shot to qualify for the round of 32.
How they got eliminated: Finished last in Group A
Final grade: D-
They had set plays — and almost nothing else.
All of their goals came from set pieces, 18 of their 34 shots came from set pieces and 1.38 of their 2.37 expected goals came from set pieces. That’s a fine balance for one of the first-time participants without any top-level talent — a team trying to eke out every edge it can. But most of Czechia’s starting XI plays in a top European league.
This is the kind of side that should be making the round of 32 and getting within range of an upset win to boost it into the round of 16. Instead, Czechia finished last in one of the weakest groups in World Cup history.
How they got eliminated: Finished last in Group B
Final grade: F
They came into the tournament as the 95th-ranked team in the Elo ratings — the lowest-rated team in the history of the World Cup. And Qatar leave the tournament ranked 99th.
Sure, they fluked into a draw with Switzerland, but this is the worst team I’ve ever seen participate in this tournament. Qatar are terrible at everything, but especially defending: 10 goals conceded, 72 shots against, 160 touches allowed inside their penalty area.
Qatar spent hundreds of billions of dollars to land the rights to host the 2022 World Cup — they might need to double that if they want to have a competent national team.
How they got eliminated: Finished last in Group L
Final grade: C-
They gave us two of the most boring first halves of the World Cup, and their first two matches featured just 33 total shots — the fewest of any team after two rounds. It almost worked, too?
Panama generated 38 touches inside the opposition penalty area and conceded only 29 against Ghana and Croatia, and I think it was smart of them to drag their games down into the low-event muck of finishing randomness. They didn’t have enough attacking talent to put the ball into the goal.
How they got eliminated: Finished last in Group J
Final grade: C+
They entered the tournament as the 38th-ranked team in projections. They then lost to Austria and Algeria, were eliminated after two matches, and their ranking … stayed the same. Jordan scored in both matches and were tied with 15 minutes left in each one.
They also left a really sweet note — and actual sweets — in the locker room after the game against Algeria. I make the rules here: I’m giving them brownie points.
How they got eliminated: Finished last in Group F
Final grade: F
They lost their opening game 5-1, fired their manager (Sabri Lamouchi), hired a new guy (Herve Renard) who didn’t know the players, and then lost the following game 4-0. Oh, and all that happened before they played the best team in their group, the Netherlands.
It’s not as though Tunisia are some first-time, happy-to-be-here side that qualified only because of the expanded field, either. No, Tunisia won games at each of the previous two World Cups! And they’ve qualified for six of the past eight tournaments! Act like you’ve been there before, guys!
How they got eliminated: Finished last in Group D
Final grade: F
According to manager Vincenzo Montella, “Not every time the team that plays better wins the game. That’s the sport we’re playing. That’s football.” He’s absolutely right — as long as he’s not talking about his team.
Turkiye were unlucky not to score in their first two matches, but they went down early against two teams they were supposedly better than, and then resorted to 27 shots from 25 yards and beyond — six more than any team had attempted across their first two matches since 2014.
A team with Juventus’s Kenan Yildiz and Real Madrid’s Arda Güler, two of the best young creators in the world, has to have a better comeback plan than that.
How they got eliminated: Finished last in Group C
Final grade: C-
Haiti entered the tournament with just a 15% chance of getting out of the group, in a tournament where two-thirds of the teams advance to the knockout rounds. They played well in their opener against Scotland — controlling 61% of the final-third possession and outshooting their opponents 15-9 — but couldn’t turn the control into a goal and lost 1-0.
Sure, they gave Brazil too much space in the next match and lost 3-0, but I’m not sure better tactics would’ve mattered much. They were eliminated before they scored a goal.
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