France vs Germany. Cristiano Ronaldo vs Luka Modric. Brazil facing the Japan side who beat them less than a year ago.All three fixtures are possible before the quarter-finals as the World Cup knockout bracket begins to take shape — alongside Mexico vs England, Argentina vs Belgium and a meeting between Arsenal team-mates William Saliba and Viktor Gyokeres.Some of those ties require little more than current group leaders holding their positions. Others depend on third-place permutations, favourable routes through the draw and several rounds of the favourites behaving like favourites.We have used The Athletic’s forecasting tools to pinpoint some of the most exciting knockout matches that could be just around the corner.The longest World Cup game ever | World Cup Daily BriefingMegan Feringa and Amitai WinehouseRound of 32From 1998-2022, 32 teams entered the World Cup. Now there are 32 teams left after the group stage.Expansion to 48 teams for the first edition of the competition staged across three countries increased the schedule from 64 matches to 104. Thanks to the addition of another round to the knockout phase, the number of knockout games doubled from 16 to 32.This is what the additional round could offer…France vs SwedenFrance must win Group I, while Sweden would need to finish third in Group F, qualify as one of the eight best third-placed teams and then be assigned to the section of the bracket containing France.The Athletic’s model gives France an 83 per cent chance of winning their group and Sweden a 67 per cent chance of finishing third and qualifying, although the allocation of the third-placed teams would still have to fall the right way.The result would see Arsenal team-mates Saliba and Gyokeres face one another on the world stage.Sweden’s pairing of Gyokeres and Liverpool striker Alexander Isak has the speed and power to give France’s centre-backs problems.The Scandinavian side have shown how unpredictable they can be, scoring five goals against Tunisia and conceding five to the Netherlands. Against Kylian Mbappe and France’s runners, that fragility could prove fatal to their competition hopes.Netherlands vs MoroccoThis is one of the more straightforward possibilities. The Group F winners play the Group C runners-up, with the Netherlands and Japan contesting one position and Brazil and Morocco the other.The Athletic’s forecast gives the Netherlands a 63 per cent chance of winning Group F and Morocco a 69 per cent chance of finishing second in Group C.Three members of Morocco’s squad — Noussair Mazraoui, Sofyan Amrabat and Anass Salah-Eddine — were born in the Netherlands and came through the Dutch football system.The Netherlands will want their full-backs, particularly Denzel Dumfries, advancing high enough to become auxiliary forwards, but Morocco’s threat comes from exploiting those spaces, with Achraf Hakimi, Brahim Diaz and Ismael Saibari able to turn a defensive action into an attack. Their draw with Brazil showed why this tie could be far from routine for the Netherlands.