At World Cup’s expanding, a power shit in football

The story from the WC knockouts is that the 48-team format gives genuinely improving teams like Morocco the space to advance.

2 min readJul 1, 2026 07:00 AM IST

First published on: Jul 1, 2026 at 06:15 AM IST

In a space of five hours, across Boston and Monterrey, two European giants were sent packing in the Round of 32 by two earnest challengers. Four-time champions Germany and three-time finalists Netherlands were shown the door by Paraguay and Morocco.

German captain Joshua Kimmich admitted that when he was growing up, “it always seemed to be semis or finals for Germany”. But this World Cup, the edifice of a football powerhouse always in control crumbled. That Manuel Neuer was forced to take goalkeeping responsibilities at 40, a dozen years after winning the World Cup in 2014, points to a paucity of talent. The young attack of Havertz, Sane, Wirtz and Musiala flopped — Bundesliga isn’t offering any better. The Netherlands were a far cry from Cruyff’s total football — their attacking talent was wasted by a conservative manager, Roeland Koeman.

The story from the WC knockouts is that the 48-team format gives genuinely improving teams like Morocco the space to advance. Europe, with its cash-rich legacy leagues, seems to have helped — perhaps inadvertently — footballers from around the world by giving them a platform. On a manic Monday night, some of its national teams failed to step up.