World Cup Fantasy Weekly Update 3

July 5, 2026

Hello and welcome to the Round of 16 (and some teams to the quarterfinals)! Once again these rounds are coming way too fast for me to get these out day of, but congrats to Morocco for being the first African nation to make the quarter finals twice - and in back to back World Cups!

This week was filled with late goals, dramatic finishes, "why don't professional soccer players just score a penalty 100% of the time"s and more, so let's get straight into it!

Round of 32

Top Half:

Germany 1-1 (3-4) Paraguay
France 3-0 Sweden

Probably (definitely) the biggest upset of the Round of 32 games came from this Germany vs Paraguay match, in which Paraguay had a staggering 24% possession yet somehow took the game all the way to penalties. And that penalty shootout was, uh, something. For those who didn't have the pleasure of watching the shitshow, Paraguay went up 3-2 after Germany missed two of their first four pens, which meant all they needed was 1 make in the last 2 to win. And because why not it's the World Cup, Paraguay went on two miss the next two, sending them to sudden death… where Jonathan Tah skied his pen and Paraguay moved on. This led to:

Paraguay 0-1 France

And this match was just kind of a disgusting brawl where Paraguay ended the game with somehow 0 yellow cards to France's 3. Which is approximately how many red cards Matias Galarza could have had. Anyway, Mbappe scored a pen and laughed in a number of Paraguayan faces when the full time whistle went as France shithoused a 1-0 win. It's a good thing Deschamps picked his 2 strongest on the bench to protect the dictator after the game.

South Africa 0-1 Canada
Netherlands 1-1 (2-3) Morocco

Our next set of matches kept the weird penalty shootout streak going as Morocco got their equalizer in the 91st minute to eventually send their game to the penalty spot. And this one had some odd ones, including multiple (iirc) shots hitting the woodwork, Bono just sorta walking to his left a little bit and having a penalty taken straight at him, and a 3-2 Morocco win. Which led to:

Canada 0-3 Morocco

Unfortunately possession does not equal goals as Jesse Marsch's squad could not convert their solid first half and instead conceded 3 in the second. Sometimes you just run into a player who goes off and field a squad that can't score, and today that player was Ounahi.

Portugal 2-1 Croatia
Spain 3-0 Austria

And the last second goal streak continues here with Ronaldo frowning on the bench and AC Milan legend Goncalo Ramos scoring honestly a great header in the 94th minute to send Portugal through. And yeah, I won't mention the Croatia goal at like 113' that was offside by a hair. Pure drama in that game (unlike the Spain vs Austria one).

Portugal vs Spain

USA 2-0 Bosnia and Herzegovina
Belgium 3-2 Senegal

I mean, I wouldn't personally have called that a red card, but okay. The good thing for the US is that Bosnia didn't really feel like attacking for the half hour or so they were up a man, considering their best chance of the whole game was a near-olimpico in the first half. Anyway, the other match in this section was a little more fun, as Senegal went up 2-0 and then felt Lukaku's wrath as the super sub scored in the 86th minute and probably somehow contributed to Trossard assisting Tielemans for the equalizer. Or maybe he told them to fight each other a few minutes earlier to prompt the enemies to lovers storyline? And then, as the second half of extra time was coming to an end, Camara swept Tielemans foot away from a low cross, granting Belgium a penalty. Humble king Lukaku then hands Tielemans the ball which he calmly (almost too much so) placed in the top right corner.

Update- I wrote this before the ~~payment was processed~~deci$ion wa$ made that Balogun's red card suspension would be "$u$pended" and, well, today I feel Belgian?

USA vs Belgium

Bottom Half:

Brazil 2-1 Japan
Ivory Coast 1-2 Norway

Another dramatic finish as Brazil squandered the Japan world cup dream in the 95th minute via a Gabriel Martinelli goal assisted by Bruno Guimaraes… perhaps a teaser for the 2026/2027 Premier League season :eyes: And meanwhile Haaland did Haaland things and scored the winner against Ivory Coast. Because he's a robot and cannot be stopped. And speaking of:

Brazil 1-2 Norway

Not only did Norway beat Brazil, but the 1 Brazil goal was a 100th minute Neymar(?) penalty after this absolute machine named Erling used 2 of his ~30 touches this match to score. And on the other end of the pitch, what a game by the current free agent goalkeeper Nyland, who had some absolutely ridiculous saves, including a penalty from Bruno G(?). Wait wait what I meant to say is Gabriel Martinelli to Newcastle… yeah that's it. Anyway, eyebrows raised in Ancelotti's direction this time as Brazil limped out of the cup with 34% possession.

Mexico 2-0 Ecuador
England 2-1 DR Congo

Really a walk in the park for Mexico as Ecuador just didn't do a whole lot going forward and did a whole lot of CONCACAFing toward the end of the match. Meanwhile England experienced much less of a walk in the park considering it took two assists from Barca legend Anthony Gordon to Harry Kane to come back from 1-0 down in the 7th minute. It's probably not coming home?

Mexico vs England

Currently this is 2-3 and an absolutely insane game so if it's still on why are you reading this and not watching that.

Argentina 3-2 Cape Verde
Australia 1-1 (2-4) Egypt

Two dramatic ones here that I unfortunately didn't get to watch a lot of, but Argentina's scare against Cape Verde went to the death considering it took a 111th minute own goal to break the tie. Meanwhile, Vozinho's follower count kept increasing (word is he's the most followed goalkeeper in the world now) alongside Messi's goal count. Plus, we have the goal of the tournament wrapped up with that Cabral stunner. And on the other side, Australia maybe could've done a little bit better in penalties. I'm hearing 2 of the takers were center backs and another was 18 years old? At least they scored as many as the Netherlands did.

Switzerland 2-0 Algeria
Colombia 1-0 Ghana

Wow, this Manzambi kid is good. That's it. That's the update.

Switzerland vs Colombia

And since it's a little hard to read, here's the full list of Round of 16 matches:

Paraguay 0-1 France
Canada 0-3 Morocco
Portugal vs Spain
USA vs Belgium
Brazil 1-2 Norway
Mexico vs England
Switzerland vs Colombia

World Cup Fantasy

Position	Manager	Points	R1	R2	R3	R4
1 (-)	Luke	404	106	70	104	124
2 (-)	Chris	380	107	97	67	109
3 (-)	Darryan	353	85	101	81	86
4 (-)	Zach	326	90	102	50	84
5 (-)	Jesse	322	67	101	71	83
6 (-)	Matthew	311	85	76	72	78
7 (-)	John	281	81	64	68	68
8 (-)	Coop	278	78	66	67	67
9 (-)	Mack	272	91	67	52	62
10 (-)	Kevin	246	66	75	43	62
11 (-)	Scott	198	44	46	34	74

And you gotta imagine Luke has this one wrapped up after his 124 point performance in gameweek 4 led by 40 points total from his 3 defenders, 52 from his 3 FWDs, and +20 from his qualification booster. Chris now sits a probably untenable 24 points off the top, 27 ahead of Darryan in 3rd. He has his own huge gap ahead of Zach, who is only 4 points ahead of Jesse. I'm only 11 back from him, with another gap between me and John/Coop/Mack. And now I'm getting deja vu, since nobody moved this week and I'm just repeating myself :). Anyway, you can imagine why I prefer Fantasy Premier League draft for our league.