{"id":765674,"date":"2026-06-28T12:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765674\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T12:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:13:11","slug":"world-cup-2026-england-progress-as-scotland-crash-out-and-messi-scores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765674\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: England progress as Scotland crash out and Messi scores"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is England’s path to the final?published at 12:04 BST<\/p>\n

12:04 BST<\/p>\n

Panama 0-2 England<\/p>\n

\"\"Daniel Austin
BBC Sport<\/p>\n

Potential quarter-final opponents<\/p>\n

Saturday, 11 July – 22:00 BST<\/p>\n

Now, this is where things being to look more difficult.<\/p>\n

Five-time winners Brazil are in England’s section of the draw and are potential quarter-final opponents, but Carlo Ancelotti’s men would first have to overcome Japan in the last 32.<\/p>\n

Vinicius Jr. and co topped Group C – knocking out Scotland in the process – but were unconvincing on the one occasion they were truly tested, drawing 1-1 with Morocco in their opening fixture.<\/p>\n

Japan, meanwhile, looked strong technically and tactically as they finished second behind the Netherlands in Group F, and have not lost in any of their past 16 matches, beating England 1-0 in a friendly at Wembley in March.<\/p>\n

The two other possible quarter-final opponents for England are Ivory Coast and Norway, who will face each other in the last 32.<\/p>\n

Ivory Coast have impressive attackers including RB Leipzig’s teenage superstar Yan Diomande, Inter’s Ange-Yoan Bonny and Manchester United winger Amad Diallo. They finished second behind Germany in the group stage.<\/p>\n

And Norway, who finished second behind France in Group I, have impressed in their first World Cup appearance since 1998.<\/p>\n

With Manchester City’s Erling Haaland up front, they would pose a significant threat.<\/p>\n

If England reach this stage, they will be playing in Miami.<\/p>\n

\"BrazilImage source, Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What is England’s path to the final?published at 12:04 BST 12:04 BST Panama 0-2 England Daniel AustinBBC Sport…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-765674","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\/765674","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=765674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}