The 2022 World Cup's "Round of 16" is way more geographically diverse than 2018

Every continent is represented in the knock-out stage this year!

The World Cup is notoriously more of a European and South American affair than it is truly a “World Cup.” No country outside of those regions has ever won the World Cup and usually when we get to the knock-out stage (which starts tomorrow), it’s typically comprised of those same two regions, with maybe a couple extra hangers-on. For example, let’s take a look at the 2018 World Cup “Round of 16”:

• Belgium - Europe

• Croatia - Europe

• Denmark - Europe

• England - Europe

• France - Europe

• Portugal - Europe

• Russia - Europe

• Spain - Europe

• Sweden - Europe

• Switzerland - Europe

• Argentina - South America

• Brazil - South America

• Colombia - South America

• Uruguay - South America

• Japan - Asia

• Mexico - North America

If you’re counting right, that’s 10 countries from Europe, 4 from South America, 1 from Asia, 1 from North America, and 0 from either Africa or Oceania. Mexico and Japan would be sent home before the next round of course.

So heading into the 2022 World Cup, it was largely expected to be the same story line. Europe and South America dominate, everyone else capitulates and we end up with some boring, run-of-the-mill European vs. European or European vs. South American final. If this tournament occurred every year, people would probably already be tuning out. But 2022 is feeling a little different. I’m not saying that we won’t end up with that same final match, but as of now, the knock out stage is seriously interesting! Let’s take a look:

• Croatia - Europe

• England - Europe

• France - Europe

• Netherlands - Europe

• Poland - Europe

• Portugal - Europe

• Spain - Europe

• Switzerland - Europe

• Argentina - South America

• Brazil - South America

• Japan - Asia

• South Korea - Asia

• United States - North America

• Morocco - Africa

• Senegal - Africa

• Australia - Oceania (though they play in the Asian confederation)

Every single continent is represented in some way. And as far as I can tell this is the first time this has happened since at least 1998 (I only checked as far back as the 2002 World Cup).

And while this may seem trivial or not all that interesting in terms of geography, I’d argue the opposite. Regardless of whether you like the sport or tournament, it’s definitely important to see representation spread out a bit more. If only a handful of countries ever won an Olympic Gold Medal, it’d probably be seen as an issue, for example.

Of course, the tournament at large is already overwhelmingly stacked in Europe’s favor. If you didn’t know, European countries get 13 automatic entries into the 32 team World Cup. That’s twice as many as the next largest, Asia, which sits at 6. It’s worth noting here that Asia has a population about 6 times the size of Europe. It’s incredibly unfair how biased the tournament is towards Europe, but that’s life! There’s probably another article here some day, but I’ve written quite a bit about the World Cup recently so I’ll probably tone it down after this.

I don’t know where the 2022 World Cup knock-out stage will take us, but for now, let’s all just take in the bliss that the tournament is at least a little more geographically diverse this year.