With the expanded 48-team 2024 World Cup moving into its final knockout elimination round, just six spots in the coveted round of 16 remain unclaimed — and half of those will be awarded on Thursday following three high-stakes matches across North America. The round of 16 is scheduled to kick off this Saturday, leaving teams across the globe racing to secure their place in the next stage of the tournament.
Headlining Thursday’s fixture list is a showdown between European champion Spain and underdog Austria at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. For Spanish football fans, this match carries extra weight: the historic powerhouse has not won a knockout round match at any of its last three World Cup appearances, a dry spell that dates back to its 2010 World Cup title in South Africa. After failing to advance out of group play in 2014, Spain fell in its opening knockout match in both the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, leaving the squad hungry to break its unwanted streak.
Under current manager Luis De La Fuente, however, there are strong signs that Spain’s dry run may be coming to an end. Since taking the helm, De La Fuente has led La Roja to just two losses across 45 matches, including title runs at the 2023 UEFA Nations League and 2024 European Championships. Entering Thursday’s match, Spain enters as the clear favorite, particularly after confirmation that young star Lamine Yamal is fully fit to play a full 90 minutes, a major boost for the side that has yet to concede a single goal through the group stage.
While Spain entered the tournament as a pre-tournament favorite, its group stage performance left room for criticism, including a surprising scoreless draw against underdog Cape Verde that reignited doubts about the squad’s ability to deliver when it matters. De La Fuente, though, remains upbeat about his team’s trajectory, noting that the side has improved steadily as the tournament has progressed.
“I can tell you that this national team is used to breaking records,” De La Fuente told reporters on Wednesday. “Perhaps that bad streak (at the World Cup) will be overcome by this specific squad. After tomorrow’s match, we’ll read the circumstances and everything that’s happened, but what we want to do next is to see you all in Dallas (for the round of 16).”
For Austria, Thursday’s match marks a landmark moment: this is the nation’s first World Cup appearance since 1998, and the squad secured its knockout spot courtesy of a dramatic 3-3 draw with Algeria in the final group stage match. With nothing to lose against one of the tournament’s top sides, manager Ralf Rangnick says his team will play with nothing holding them back. While Rangnick freely acknowledged Spain’s status as one of the world’s strongest sides and the current European champion, he highlighted that his side outscored Spain in group play (six goals to Spain’s five) and holds a fun trivia edge: Austria’s David Alaba is the only Real Madrid player currently on either roster, though Alaba is set to leave the club this summer, while Spain’s Marc Cucurella is set to join Real Madrid from Chelsea.
“They’re one of the strongest teams in the world. It’s the European champion, and they haven’t lost a match in a very long time,” Rangnick said. “(But) there have been one or two big surprises in this (World Cup), and we want to make sure that the match tomorrow will be one of the tight matches as well.”
In the night’s second match, set for Toronto, Portugal will face Croatia in a clash that could mark the end of one of two iconic careers: 41-year-old Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo and 40-year-old Croatian midfield legend Luka Modric, who spent six seasons as teammates at Real Madrid. For Ronaldo, the match offers a chance to check another box on his historic resume: despite being the only player to score at six different World Cups, he has never found the net in a World Cup knockout match, and Portugal will need his best form to avoid early elimination.
For Modric, the match comes just over a week after he earned his 200th senior international cap in a crucial group stage win over Panama at the same Toronto stadium. Still the linchpin of Croatia’s midfield, Modric led the nation to a third-place finish in 2022 and a runner-up finish in 2018, and Croatian manager Zlatko Dalic has said the outcome of the match will likely rise or fall on Modric’s performance.
Portugal midfielder Vitinha, who exchanged jerseys with Modric after a previous club meeting, called the Croatian a reference point for all young players. “Hopefully tomorrow he’ll be a little bit sadder than me,” Vitinha joked. He added that the whole squad is motivated to advance, not just for the country, but for Ronaldo.
The final match of Thursday takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Switzerland will face Algeria — and Algeria is led by a very familiar face: former Swiss manager Vladimir Petkovic, who held the top job with Switzerland from 2014 to 2021. During his seven-year tenure, Petkovic led Switzerland to the 2018 World Cup round of 16 and guided the nation to its first-ever European Championship quarterfinal berth in 2020. Current Swiss forward Breel Embolo earned his first senior call-up under Petkovic and was named to the 2018 World Cup squad by the manager, and says Petkovic knows most of the current Swiss squad very well.
“Yeah, he’s a coach that knows me very well, I think he knows a lot of players,” Embolo said. “But personally speaking, no, nothing’s going to change on my front. I’m going to play the football I’m used to playing, taking into consideration not only the qualities of the Algerian squad, but also their weak spots.”
Petkovic downplayed any idea that his history with the Swiss side gives Algeria a major edge, noting that modern soccer has little room for hidden secrets. “Everyone knows each other. There are no real secrets left in the game,” Petkovic said. “I don’t think it’s a huge advantage to know someone or someone else, just as I know the players, the players know me, and it’s a huge pleasure to come up against them. It’ll be lovely to meet and greet them, but after that, the players will go out there on the pitch, and I’m certainly expecting a tough game, and in order to win a match we need to give 120% against a very decent Swiss side.”
Switzerland has advanced to the round of 16 at each of the past three 32-team World Cups, and will look to repeat that feat in Thursday’s 48-team format knockout match. All three of Thursday’s matches will be broadcast across Fox, Telemundo and Peacock, with kickoffs scheduled for 3 p.m. EST, 7 p.m. EDT and 11 p.m. EDT respectively.