As group play winds down at the World Cup, the biggest intrigue might be not who finishes first in a four-team group. It’s who finishes third.Teams that are first and second in their groups move on automatically to the Round of 32. The U.S., Canada and Mexico, co-hosts of the tournament, have all advanced, along with France, Germany, Brazil, Norway and others. The U.S. will face Bosnia-Herzegovina on Wednesday in Santa Clara, California, while Canada heads to Los Angeles to face South Africa on Sunday. Other marquee matchups are set, including Morocco versus the Netherlands and Japan versus Brazil.Third-place is no guarantee. The eight best third-place teams also get in, with ties broken by goals scored and goal differential if necessary.“I personally didn’t want to end up in this kind of situation, where we have to wait and see if we will reach the knockouts,” South Korea forward Son Heung-min said. “It’s disappointing that we didn’t get the outcome we deserved, considering the amount of hard work we’ve done, but it’s out of our hands now and we will have to accept our fate, whatever it will be.”
Teams with four points — a win, a draw and a loss — almost certainly make the Round of 32. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sweden and Ecuador already advanced that way, and Paraguay is poised to join that group, which would mean four qualifiers left.
