{"id":763959,"date":"2026-06-27T15:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/763959\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T15:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:35:11","slug":"england-v-panama-world-cup-2026-live-predictions-team-news-and-selection-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/763959\/","title":{"rendered":"England v Panama World Cup 2026 LIVE: predictions, team news and selection debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Group L &#8211; permutationspublished at 14:37 BST<\/p>\n<p>14:37 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England are sure of going through at least in third.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Three Lions top the group ahead of Ghana on goal difference and face Panama in their final game on Saturday (20:00 BST).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Thomas Tuchel&#8217;s men must equal or better Ghana&#8217;s result against Croatia to remain at the summit and play a third-placed team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If both games are draws, England win the group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If both win, top spot would be decided on goal difference &#8211; England are currently on +2 and Ghana +1, but the Three Lions have scored three more goals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Should goal difference finish identical, it will go to disciplinary record (England -1, Ghana -2) and then England would secure it on Fifa world ranking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ghana have already qualified and will secure a top-two finish if they win or draw against Croatia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Africans will top the group if they better England&#8217;s result, or win by a big enough margin to overtake them on goal difference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ghana will finish third if they lose, but have enough points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Croatia must beat Ghana if they are to secure automatic qualification. A Croatia win and England dropping points would see them top the group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A draw would secure safe passage in third. But they won&#8217;t qualify with a defeat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Panama, who are yet to open their account, are already eliminated.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Group L - England top on 4 pts, above Ghana on goal difference, followed by Croatia on 3 pts and Panama on 0 pts\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ab0477c9-8dbc-4a91-9da7-33a70b32353b.png.webp\"  width=\"1224\" height=\"1530\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Group L &#8211; permutationspublished at 14:37 BST 14:37 BST England are sure of going through at least in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-763959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}