Six of the best: Qatar 2022 sets record for group stage survivors outside traditional powerhouses

By David Owen

3 December – Qatar 2022, a World Cup of upheavals? Well, actually yes, as the group stage draws to a close, the opening stage of this massively controversial tournament has indeed, by any objective yardstick, been the most surprising in recent history.

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Since the first World Cup kicked off 92 years ago, the competition has been dominated by a small elite of European and South American nations. In this almost century of existence, only eight teams have actually lifted the trophy, all from South America and Western Europe.

The two regions have indeed exercised an almost monopolistic hold over the final stages of the tournament. Of the 160 total teams that qualified for the last eight or beyond, by my tally, only 11 small - just under 7% - weren't European or South American.

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In such circumstances, reaching the round of 16 becomes a mark of some significance for teams from other parts of the globe.

And after South Korea's Friday victory over already-qualified Portugal saw them come from behind and claim a spot in the Round of 16, Qatar 2022 became the Cup in the world with the most non-European and non-South American players. teams among the 16 still standing.

Since the introduction of the round of 16 in 1986, the sequence of non-European/South American teams that have made it this far is: two, two, four, two, five, three, five, five, of them . This was already a step forward – especially since the last three occasions when the total number of non-European/South American representatives did not reach five occurred at competitions held in Europe. And now, in Qatar, a new historic record of six knockout stages has been reached.

The group stage of the current tournament has proved particularly encouraging for the Asian Football Confederation, whose three representatives in the knockout stage - Australia, Japan and South Korea - outnumber the two surviving South American heavyweights.

CAF will probably be quietly happy to see two African teams – Senegal and Morocco – battling it out so far, especially if at least one of them can go further. Concacaf may be disappointed that only hometown USA have survived the group stage, although they are expected to do better in 2026 when they have three teams playing at home.

What are the odds that Qatar 2022 will significantly swell the ranks of non-European/South American teams that have reached the last eight of a World Cup? Reasonably high, I would have thought, with Germany and Belgium already finding themselves unexpectedly shipped early.

It could even be the second World Cup in history where more than one of the last eight players comes from outside the European and South American zones. The 2002 competition – the last to be held in Asia – saw three such teams – Senegal, the United States and South Korea – reach the quarter-finals. All three reached the round of 16 again in Qatar.

Can any of these trios, or other qualifiers such as Australia, Japan and Morocco, match or surpass South Korea's feat as hosts, when the Guus Hiddink's men became one of only two non-European/South American teams to play in a World Cup semi-final? -final? (The other was the United States since 1930, and they lost 6-1.)

It will be a tall order, but the schedule is relentless, although the lack of internal travel may help, and there seems to be a lot of tired legs on display. This strikes me as the kind of conditions under which shocks can occur.

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