The Round of 32 at the World Cup is set. With a week between games, that means a lot of watching for Philadelphia.
The July 4 Round of 16 game will bring to Lincoln Financial Field the winner of Germany and Paraguay against the winner of France and Sweden.
Germany-Paraguay is Monday in Foxborough, Mass. France and Sweden will play Tuesday in East Rutherford, N.J.
Since the draw in December, the collision course was Germany and France, with the Group E winner and Group I winner the chalk selections for Philadelphia.
Germany, the only member of Group E not to have played in Philadelphia, held up its end of the bargain. Wins over Curacao and Ivory Coast meant it had clinched Group E before a 2-1 loss to Ecuador in East Rutherford.
The Germans will be a prohibitive favorite against Paraguay, which finished third in the United States’ Group D.
La Albirroja recovered from a 4-1 pasting by the U.S. in the opener to score a 1-0 win over Turkey on a second-minute goal by Atlanta United’s Matias Galarza, then worked a joyless draw against Australia in a game where both teams knew it would be enough to advance.
Paraguay finished seventh of 12 third-place teams, getting through on four points and a minus-2 goal differential.
Germany is ranked 12th in the latest FIFA World Rankings, with Paraguay 37th.
It’s the first time Germany has emerged from its group at a World Cup since 2014, when it won the tournament. The four-time champion had made the quarterfinals at each of its previous 16 World Cups dating to 1954, with 12 semifinal appearances and eight finals berths.
France has already made its way through Philadelphia, defeating Iraq, 3-0, in the June 22 rain-delayed match, the first — and still only one — in World Cup history. France won all three matches in the group, handling Senegal, 3-1, and Norway, 4-1. Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele have four goals each, Dembele off a hat trick against Norway.
Sweden finished third in Group F. It isn’t boring, having scored seven times and allowed seven goals. It rampaged past a doormat of a Tunisia side, 5-1, in its opener, then got run over, 5-1, by Netherlands. A 1-1 draw with Japan was sedate, knowing both would get through with that result.
France, the 2018 champion, is ranked second by FIFA, behind only the team to which it lost in the 2022 final, Argentina. Sweden is 36th.
The Round of 16 clash at 5 p.m. on July 4 is the sixth and final game to be held at what FIFA is calling Philadelphia Stadium. Four of the first five have been sellouts of the 68,324-seat capacity.
By FIFA’s reported attendances, Philadelphia has filled 99.985 percent of its possible seats. That ranks third-best among 16 venues, trailing only 100 percent records from Vancouver and Mexico City, which hosted only three games, two involving the Mexican national team.
No venue has been less than 99 percent full, and no single game has had a capacity lower than 97.34 percent of reported capacity: Saudi Arabia vs. Uruguay in Miami on June 15.
Six of the nine teams that played games in Philadelphia in the group stage — France, Croatia, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Ghana, Brazil — advanced to the Round of 32.