The Portuguese know how to play the tournament. In the last two editions they have passed the group stage without problem. In Russia they reached the eighth. In Qatar they went to the quarterfinals. Now they will face a competition full of emotions: it will be Ronaldo’s last and in which they will seek to pay tribute to the late forward Diogo Jota. Colombia, which is motivated because it will play the World Cup of the farewell of James Rodríguez, their captain and reference in more than a decade, will seek to overcome the group stage for the fourth time. The Creoles have played six World Cups. Only in three of them did they play more than three games.
Could Colombia finish first?
The first was in Italy 1990. The second in Brazil 2014 and the third in Russia 2018. On the last two occasions they advanced first in their group. In Brazil, when he returned to the tournament after 16 years, he finished at the top after winning all three matches he played.
That time, in the group stage, they beat Greece 3-0, Ivory Coast 2-1 and Japan 1-4. It has been, so far, the only time it ended with a perfect score. It was also when he had his best performance: he reached the quarterfinals, where he lost 2-1 to Brazil, after beating Uruguay, by the same score, in the round of 16.
In Russia 2018 he also finished first. That time he did not win all the games, but the six points he added were enough for him to finish at the top of the table. In their debut, they lost 1-2 with Japan. In the second match they beat Poland 3-0, and in the third they defeated Senegal 0-1.
In the round of 16 she was eliminated, but did not lose. In regulation time they tied 1-1 against England, while the penalty shootout ended 3-4 in favor of the English team. This time, the Colombians hope to repeat the feat of being first. If they achieve this, they will face one of the 8 best third parties in the round of 32.
However, from the second round their path would become complicated. In that instance they could face the first team in Group B, which could potentially be Switzerland or Italy (in case they overcome the playoffs and reach the groups.
What would be the most complicated path?
The same would happen if he finishes second. In that case, from the round of 32 teams it would have a big challenge: it would be measured by going to the round of 16 with the winner of Group L, which could be the England National Team – against which it played its most recent game in a World Cup on July 3, 2018 – or Croatia. In the round of 16, in that way, everything indicates that they would face the Spanish National Team, current European champions.
But there is another scenario: that it occupies third place in the area. The Creoles have already done it. In Italy 1990, when they advanced for the first time, they occupied that space in Group D after adding 3 points after beating the United Arab Emirates 2-0 (at that time they gave 2 points), drawing 1-1 with Germany and losing 0-1 with Yugoslavia. That time they lost 2-1 in the round of 16 against Cameroon.
If they were third in their zone in North America 2026, the outlook would be complicated, since in the round of 32 they could face any of the eleven teams that finish in the first box of the World Cup zones, because they could not be measured against the leader of group K, where they start the tournament.
