Here are the teams that could play in World Cup knockout stage in KC and who won’t
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kansas City will host a round-of-32 match and a quarterfinal.
- Argentina, Tunisia, Curaçao, the Netherlands, Ecuador, Austria and Algeria will play.
- The simulator predicts Portugal will beat Panama in KC and then face Argentina.
We already know which seven World Cup teams will play in the four group-stage matches at Kansas City Stadium (née Arrowhead Stadium).
It’ll be Argentina, Tunisia, Curaçao, the Netherlands, Ecuador, Austria and Algeria (twice).
But two knockout stage games will be played in Kansas City: A round-of-32 match and a quarterfinal). The opponents for those matches won’t be determined until the end of group-stage play.
A Reddit user made a 2026 World Cup simulator and users can run 5,000 simulations instantaneously. It projects Panama will face Portugal in the Round of 32 game in KC, with Portugal winning. The quarterfinal matchup would be Portugal versus Argentina, and that’s match soccer fans hope happens as it would pit Ronaldo against Lionel Messi.
A different World Cup simulator predicted Portugal would take on Paraguay in the Round-of-32 game in Kansas City. It has Iran playing Egypt in the quarterfinal.
The New York Times estimated the chances of where each of the 48 teams could play in each stage of the knockout round. And in what city.
Based on that, we know there are eight teams that won’t play in KC: Brazil, Mexico, Czech Republic, Haiti, Morocco, Scotland, South Korea and South Africa.
The top-two teams in each of the 12 groups will move to the knockout round and eight third-place teams also will advance. Because of those third-place teams, there are a lot of variables on which teams will advance.
Here is how it looks for Kansas City’s two knockout games, and these are odds so they don’t add up to 100% (R32 is round of 32 and QF is quarterfinal game).
United States: 1% chance in R32 and 7% in QF
Portugal: 63% in R32 and 30% in QF
Argentina: less than 1% in R32 and 35% in QF
Colombia: 29% in R32 and 9% in QF
Ghana: 24% in R32 and 4% in QF
Croatia: 17% in R32 and 3% in QF
Panama: 15% in R32 and 2% in QF
Switzerland: 0% in R32 and 11% in QF
Uruguay: 0% in R32 and 11% in QF
Senegal: 8% in R32 and 2% in QF
Spain: 0% in R32 and 9% in QF
Egypt: 0% in R32 and 8% in QF
England: 6% in R32 and 3% in QF
Norway: 6% in R32 and 2% in QF
Turkiye: 1% in R32 and 6% in QF
Belgium: 0% in R32 and 7% in QF
Iran: 0% in R32 and 6% in QF
Paraguay: 1% in R32 and 5% in QF
Ivory Coast: 5% in R32 and 1% in QF
Canada: 0% in R32 and 5% in QF
Congo: 5% in R32 and 1% in QF
New Zealand: 0% in R32 and 4% in QF
Iraq: 3% in R32 and 1% in QF
Uzbekistan: 3% in R32 and 1% in QF
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 0% in R32 and 3% in QF
France: 2% in R32 and 1% in QF
Australia: 1% in R32 and 3% in QF
Germany: 1% in R32 and 1% in QF
Saudi Arabia: 0% in R32 and 2% in QF
Jordan: less than 1% in R32 and 1% in QF
Cape Verde: 0% in R32 and 1% in QF
Qatar: 0% in R32 and 1% in QF
Japan: 0% in R32 and less than 1% in QF
Sweden: 0% in R32 and less than 1% in QF
Ecuador: 4% in R32 and 1% in QF
Austria: 1% chance in R32 and 6% in QF
Algeria: 1% chance in R32 and 4% in QF
Curaçao: 1% chance in R32 and less than 1% in QF
Netherlands: 0% chance in R32 and less than 1% in QF
Tunisia: 0% in R32 and less than 1% in QF
