By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-06-04 11:48:52 | Updated at 2026-06-08 05:32:29
3 days ago
Group L at the 2026 FIFA World Cup is a battle between England, Croatia, Ghana and Panama. Who will qualify for the knockout phase?
The forthcoming FIFA World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States of America begins on 11 June, but there is a bit of a wait for Group L to start.
The first match in this group sees England face Croatia in Arlington on Wednesday 17 June. It’s a clash which may determine which of these European sides tops the group. Later the same day, Toronto hosts Ghana versus Panama.
Thomas Tuchel’s men are among the tournament favourites, but they must negotiate the group before they can dream about going all the way. We look at the Opta supercomputer’s predictions here to see who is likeliest to get through.
World Cup Group L Predictions
- England are the third likeliest of any team to top their group at this World Cup. They finished top of Group L in 67.5% of the 10,000 Opta supercomputer projections.
- Croatia (76.9%) also have a strong chance of reaching the knockout phase from this group.
- Ghana (49.5%) and Panama (40.0%) are the Group L underdogs, but not without hope.
Sixty years of hurt, never stopped them dreaming.
For one of the biggest football nations on the planet, England’s World Cup record has been nothing to write home about since 1966. Only twice in the intervening six decades have they got past the quarter-finals (in 1990 and 2018).
The Opta supercomputer currently makes England a 30.4% shot to reach the last four this summer. It’s easy to see why they should have a chance of reaching the semi-finals once again.
England kept nine clean sheets in their 10 matches in 2025, including a shutout in each of their eight UEFA World Cup qualifiers. The 2.1 expected goals they conceded was the best figure by any team in the European branch of qualifying.
Harry Kane was unsurprisingly their top scorer in those matches, with eight. Only Kylian Mbappé (12) has netted more goals across the last two World Cups, too. The England captain has scored eight times in 11 appearances.
Kane, who scored 64 goals in 56 competitive games for Bayern Munich in 2025-26, will be looking to overtake Gary Lineker’s national record of 10 World Cup goals. If he goes well past it, he will give England great chance of going deep into the tournament.
Croatia’s record in this competition outshines England’s over the past three decades. It has been a case of feast or famine, though.
In their previous six participations, they were either eliminated in the group stage (three times) or reached at least the semi-finals (three times), including a run to the final in 2018. While it won’t be a factor at this stage of the competition, Croatia have also won all four of their World Cup penalty shootouts. England could never.
As has been the case for so long, coach Zlatko Dalic will lean on the experience of his veterans. Luka Modric has completed more line-breaking passes across the last three World Cup tournaments than any other player (199) and will no doubt be key to potential success once again, despite now being 40 years old.
Ivan Perisic, meanwhile, has been directly involved in more goals than any other Croatian in major tournament history (18 – 10 goals and eight assists). He’s also one of only three players to have both scored and assisted at each of the last three World Cups, along with Lionel Messi and Neymar.
It’s very good company to keep and helps explain why Croatia frequently overachieve at the tournament.
Ghana came incredibly close to becoming the first African country to reach the World Cup semi-finals in 2010. Yet they have now won only one of their last seven matches at the tournament (losing four), beating South Korea in the 2022 group stages.
The leakiness of their defence was part of the problem, with Ghana not keeping a clean sheet in any of their previous 10 World Cup games. Having Carlos Queiroz in the dugout is likely an attempt to see that improve though, given his career history.
Antoine Semenyo scored 17 Premier League goals in 2025-26 and the winner for Manchester City in the FA Cup final against Chelsea last month. Yet Ghana’s top man in qualifying was Jordan Ayew. His 14 goal involvements were the joint-most in CAF qualification alongside Algeria’s Mohammed Amoura. Most impressively, they were split evenly between goals (7) and assists (7), topping Ghana’s standings for each metric.
Group outsiders Panama may be suffering from déjà vu. Their one previous World Cup appearance in 2018 saw them drawn in a group with England, who beat them 6-1.
Not that they did much better in their other games. During that World Cup, Panama conceded more goals than any other side (11), had the second-highest expected goals against per game (2.3) and the fourth-lowest possession percentage (36.3%).
However, along with Curaçao, they were the only sides to avoid defeat during the 2026 CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers among the teams with 10+ matches.
Compared to their regional rivals, Panama like to press high, as evidenced by them leading the standings for high turnovers (82), pressed sequences (137) and lowest PPDA value (9.4). This may enable to perform better than they did eight years ago.
*All prediction data is accurate as of 4 June 2026.
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