📈 For the first time in World Cup history, the four teams that reached the semifinals were exactly the top four nations in the FIFA rankings at the start of the tournament: 🇪🇸 Spain, 🇦🇷 Argentina, 🇫🇷 France, and 🏴 England. That had never happened under the previous 32-team format.
🔍 This wasn’t just a coincidence—it was a logical consequence of the expanded 48-team format. With more teams, favorites face a much lower risk of an early exit, thanks to an easier path through the group stage and the additional knockout round.
🧠 The expanded tournament effectively gives elite teams more room to breathe: they can rotate their squads more often, recover from an occasional setback without major consequences, and build momentum before the decisive matches.
🎯 Betting takeaway: under the new format, expect fewer Cinderella stories making deep tournament runs. The expanded structure favors the strongest teams, making it harder for underdogs to reach the latter stages of the World Cup.
