No outright Group of Death in World Cup draw, but many interesting subplots

Open this photo in gallery:

Won’t somebody spare a thought for poor Scotland?

While much of Canada is consumed by Italian angst – with the very real possibility of Jesse Marsch’s men now opening against the four-time world champions – across the Atlantic, Scotland’s reward for qualifying for the World Cup for the first time in 27 years is … Brazil. Again.

For the fifth time in its past seven trips to soccer’s quadrennial jamboree, the Tartan Army will lock horns with the five-time World Cup winners. And if that wasn’t bad enough – from Scotland’s point of view, given its 0-3-1 record in the first four meetings – toss in a matchup with 2022 semi-finalist Morocco – the recently crowned under-20 World Cup winners – with Haiti rounding out the quartet.

And that’s not even the quote-unquote Group of Death that emerged from Friday’s World Cup draw.

Far from it in fact. If you average out the world rankings of the teams – using the highest-ranked team in the case of placeholders – Scotland’s group (Group C) has an average of 34, making it the fifth-easiest group in the tournament.

Cathal Kelly: The World Cup draw lived up to its hype as a spectacle of meme-able proportions

Group F, which contains world No. 7 the Netherlands, No. 18 Japan, No. 40 Tunisia, and UEFA playoff pathway B (Sweden/Poland/Ukraine/Albania) comes out as the hardest, with a ranking of 23.25. Canada’s Group B is at 26.75, the third hardest.

But rankings be damned. Optics are everything at the World Cup, so those looking for a Group of Death would likely be better served casting a glance at Group I, where France, the 2018 winner and 2022 runner-up, will take on Erling Haaland’s Norway, world No. 19 Senegal and another playoff pathway team (the winner of Bolivia/Suriname vs Iraq). Certainly France, who famously lost to Senegal in 2002 in one of the World Cup’s biggest shocks, is unlikely to look past the Lions of Teranga once again.

Staying on message, France coach Didier Deschamps, one of just three men to win the World Cup as a player and coach, acknowledged that his team is in “a very tough group.”

In truth, given the newly expanded 48-team World Cup, the possibility of a true Group of Death was less likely than in tournaments past, with the concentration of national teams having been diluted across 12 groups rather than the previous eight.

Open this photo in gallery:

That’s even with a new wrinkle with the presence of a trio of host teams, meaning only the top nine in the world joining them in the top tier of seeds. But with all three being inside the top-30 in the world, it’s fair to say they are more deserving of a spot there than, say, 51st-ranked Qatar last time around.

And though Scotland, which has never made it out of the group stage in eight previous appearances, may feel hard done by, this year’s World Cup newcomers were hardly given a free pass.

Curaçao, an autonomous island of about 156,000 people within the Netherlands kingdom, was handed a baptism by fire, with the first-ever finals match for the smallest country by population to qualify for the tournament coming against four-time champion Germany.

The three other confirmed World Cup debutants – four more possibles are in the playoffs – will also need to get their World Cup legs underneath them rapidly if they are to stay afloat. World No. 66 Jordan will play defending World Cup champion Argentina in its second game; 68th-ranked Cape Verde will face former winners Uruguay and Spain in Group H; Uzbekistan, ranked 50th, will open against Colombia before meeting Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal.

From one extreme to the other, the World Cup heavyweights will largely be confident heading into the round-robin stage. The world’s top-four teams by ranking – Spain, Argentina, France and England – have been kept apart, and provided they win their groups, won’t face each other until at least the semi-finals.

Powered by teenage wunderkind Lamine Yamal, the 18-year-old Ballon d’Or runner-up, Spain, who will face Saudi Arabia in addition to Uruguay and Cape Verde, will be looking to add another World Cup to the European Championship it won last year.

With or without Lionel Messi – the Inter Miami icon recently refused to commit to playing next summer – Argentina will feel good about its chances, being drawn in a group with Algeria, Austria and Jordan. Not that its head coach was going to appear over-confident, after its humbling opener three years ago.

“Remember what happened to us against Saudi Arabia?” Scaloni joked, referring to that titanic 2-1 upset.

England, which is still looking to end a trophy drought that is set to reach 60 years next summer, will face Croatia in a rematch of the 2018 semi-final in its opener. Things get noticeably easier from that point though, as Thomas Tuchel’s team, who didn’t concede a goal in the qualifiers, then meets 30th-ranked Panama and world No. 72 Ghana.

The matchups might get more interesting beyond the round robin though. If France wins its group, it could be drawn into a round-of-16 encounter with long-time European rival Germany. Meanwhile, Messi and Ronaldo – both set to appear in a record sixth World Cup – could face off in the quarter-finals if both Argentina and Portugal top their groups.

And while Canada might be a little uneasy about its group – with world No. 17 Switzerland and No. 51 Qatar lining up alongside whichever European team comes out of Pathway A (with Italy the most likely based on ranking and tradition) – its co-hosts likely feel much better about their chances.

The United States will play Australia, Paraguay, and a UEFA playoff winner (Turkey/Romania/Slovakia/Kosovo), while Mexico take on South Africa in the World Cup opener on June 11, followed by South Korea and another UEFA playoff winner (Czechia/Ireland/Denmark/North Macedonia).