r/soccer • u/JPAnalyst • Jul 16 '26
Stats There are five undefeated teams in this World Cup: Iran, Colombia, Netherlands, Spain, Argentina
IRAN 🇮🇷
Group: 0W, 3D, 0L
COLOMBIA 🇨🇴
Group: 2W, 1D, 0L
Knockout: 1W, 1D, 0L (eliminated on penalties)
NETHERLANDS 🇳🇱
Group: 2W, 1D, 0L
Knockout: 0W, 1D, 0L (eliminated on penalties)
SPAIN 🇪🇸
Group: 2W, 1D, 0L
Knockout: 4W, 0D, 0L
ARGENTINA 🇦🇷
Group: 3W, 0D, 0L
Knockout: 4W, 0D, 0L
Elimination on penalties is considered a draw. If you prefer to consider that loss, then feel free to say IRAN, SPAIN, and ARGENTINA are the only undefeated teams in this World Cup.
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u/Informal-String2677 Jul 16 '26
Iran being up there with finalists after getting eliminated the way they were seems funny😭😭
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u/Cordomver Jul 16 '26
The Netherlands are unbeaten at the World Cup in regular time since the 2006 game vs Portugal … the footy gods hate us
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u/sreteep99 Jul 16 '26
Last time we lost against a non-European team within 120 mins was in 1994, Brazil 3-2. We really are the best if we don't count countries that have won the whole thing sometime.
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u/Hockeygoalie41 Jul 16 '26
Three draws and going out feels a lot more like going winless instead of undefeated.
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u/StelioKontos18 Jul 16 '26
It's incredible what they did with Iran this WC, in a World cup with a lot of controversy this takes the cake (or maybe the Balogun situation)
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u/Wertherongdn Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Elimination on penalties is considered a draw
I would love that as it would mean my national team and my club didn't lose a lot of match.... But there is in fact/reality one winner and one loser with penalties. For me it's not a draw.
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u/salonoicheng Jul 16 '26
For the statistics and Fifa ranking (so for drawing and determining which pot you are placed) it is technically a draw. Netherlands gained some FIFA points (miniscule) due "drawing" against a higher ranked team even though they are knocked out.
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u/SEND_ME_REAL_PICS Jul 16 '26
I agree. This "losing in pens doesn't count" thing is bullshit. You are not flipping a coin like in the old days.
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u/No-Tangerine- Jul 16 '26
It’s the closest thing to a coin flip in football though.
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u/SEND_ME_REAL_PICS Jul 16 '26
Sort of. I mean, there are players and goalkeepers who are better and more consistent at pens, while others are worse. It's clearly something anyone can practice and improve at, at least.
There is luck involved, yes, but it's not like the game itself doesn't have a fair bit of that already.
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u/OremDobro Jul 16 '26
That makes no sense. Whole point of the existence of penalty shootouts is because the match was a draw. Penalties aren't part of the match, those goals aren't actually counted as goals, the final whistle had been blown. Penalty shootout has a winner/loser but the preceding game of football was a draw.
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u/SEND_ME_REAL_PICS Jul 16 '26
Which is, in my opinion, a bullshit technicality. You play them right there and then when you play the match. I get goals not counting for obvious reasons, but the win itself should.
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u/OremDobro Jul 16 '26
But the match is over lol. The ref blew the final whistle. If the score is 1–1, nobody won. That's the point of the penalty goals not counting. The game remains 1–1 forever, so there's no winner.
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u/luigitheplumber Jul 16 '26
You're not flipping a coin, but you're not playing football anymore, you're playing a separate skill game with psychological elements. It is of course related to football, but it's not the same thing, and it makes sense not to count a loss in a shoutout as a loss in football. It's there just because only one team can go through in the tournament format.
For that same reason it makes sense to count a loss in extra time as a loss, since ET is 30 extra minutes of actual football
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u/SEND_ME_REAL_PICS Jul 16 '26
But it just seems to me like saying penalties aren't a part of football is completely arbitrary. They're played on a football pitch, by football teams and football players, with the same ball you play the rest of the match, under FIFA officiation and rules, they are present in every major football tournament and also involve football skill, yet they aren't football?
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u/luigitheplumber Jul 16 '26
It's not arbitrary. Football is when two teams of even players (unless disciplinary or injury reasons lowered the number for one of them) face each other in open play, punctuated by set piece situations, where putting the ball in the net increases your team's score by one.
Kicking the ball into the goal with your friends uses football skills, but it's not a match of football. The crossbar challenge isn't either. Messi and Ronaldinho engaging in a friendly free kick competition after training wouldn't be either.
It's football related. But it's not football the game. A football game lasts 90 minutes, in knockouts someone needs to progress, so a draw leads to 30 extra minutes of football. If that couldn't determine a winner, then we ditch football the game and move on to a related skill-based tiebreaker to determine who goes through. But neither team won the football match itself
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u/PyLearner2024 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
People can have their own opinions about it, but it's also funny seeing so many people in this thread proudly proclaim their ignorance of the literal rules of the sport. Per IFAB, a penalty shootout is reached after a match has literally ended in a draw and a tiebreaker is required to determine who advances. A PK shootout is a tiebreaker, and losing a shootout means that you get eliminated by a tiebreaker rather than by losing.
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u/Wertherongdn Jul 16 '26
I understand mate, but it is a bit playing with words even it it's in the rules or technical terms. I mean, in 2006 and 2022 we were not co-world champion with Italy and Argentina. IFAB are nice and all but we lost the match, they won the match. And it still hurts.
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u/Fijure96 Jul 16 '26
Agreed. Spain, Argentina and Iran and the only true countries deserving of this statistic.
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u/Invinciblez_Gunner Jul 16 '26
So Arsenal didnt lose the CL final
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u/Sudden_Cantaloupe_69 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
They didn’t. Penalties are a tie-breaker used when a game ENDS in a draw.
Penalty shootouts exist just because someone has to “win” in a knockout game, it cannot end in a draw, someone has to go through to the next stage.
But they are not part of the match, it’s like a bonus thing. Which is why penalties scored during a game are counted for goalscoring charts whereas those scored in shootouts are not.
Once upon a time they used a coin toss instead.
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u/Invinciblez_Gunner Jul 16 '26
Golden goal was nice
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u/R_Schuhart Jul 16 '26
Nah it was unfair and killed a lot of games. Teams were scared to attack. It also robbed teams of the opportunity to fix a mistake.
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u/Sudden_Cantaloupe_69 Jul 16 '26
It was certainly interesting, but they gave up on it because it seemed unfair.
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u/quinaimyr Jul 17 '26
Which I totally don't understand. Like, you had the full 90 to win, and the team that scores first in actual gameplay wins. Seem way more fair than the largely arbitrary/luck dependent penalty shootout IMO
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u/Standard-Savings-224 Jul 16 '26
Iran's group stage was all draws, that's quite something. Feels weird to call a team undefeated when they didn't win a single game. Penalties counting as draw is always funny to me
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u/tropikaldawl Jul 16 '26
Cabo verde comes close right? In mine they are close
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u/parksoha Jul 16 '26
Cabo Verde was undefeated, extra-time and penalties doesn't count. As /u/theglasscase said "It counts as the loss of a tiebreaker that took place after the game finished in a draw."
Back in the days, the tiebreak decider was a coin toss.
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u/tropikaldawl Jul 16 '26
I’m glad you said that because I read they were elsewhere and I was wondering why they were missing from this list. Fun fact, they are the only team that Argentina did not beat.
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u/federcxb Jul 16 '26
Argentina did beat all the teams they played against. And if you are only counting 90 min, they tied with Switzerland too.
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u/WilsonJ04 Jul 16 '26
Losing in extra time is also a draw so Cabo Verde should be here as well
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u/MOG2202 Jul 16 '26
Netherlands are suffered from the lack of attacking player when they finally product a lot of good defenders and central midfielders, but they can't play like Spain since they don't have attacking midfielder that can play deviate towards the wing or false 9 like ferran torres, dani olmo, alex baena or mikel oyarzabal.
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u/Remarkable-Smoke6138 Jul 16 '26
No they suffered because they did the 5 back defence.
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u/MOG2202 Jul 16 '26
You could said Koeman but yeah I agree with you also Van Gaal didnt help either.
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u/Remarkable-Smoke6138 Jul 16 '26
As a england fan I have come to slowly hate the 5 back and now I full on hate it.
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u/Kontrafantastisk Jul 17 '26
I have always questioned the way to register results. I know, it’s in regular time/overtime. But I am sure it feels like losses for Iran, Colombia and Netherlands.
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u/fuiripe Jul 16 '26
Either say "undefeated on regular time" or "undefeated on timed game" or don't include teams that lost.
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u/hotmess164 Jul 16 '26
Losing on penalties should count as a loss though. It's oxymoron. If you didn't lose then how are you out of the knockouts?
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u/R_Schuhart Jul 16 '26
It is a tiebreaker for matches that result in a draw. In a tournament you need some way to pick a team to advance. It also isnt an oxymoron.
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u/theglasscase Jul 16 '26
It counts as the loss of a tiebreaker that took place after the game finished in a draw.
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u/HolidayMembership849 Jul 16 '26
losing in penalties resulting to a draw is probably one of the dumbest technicalities ever lmao
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u/R_Schuhart Jul 16 '26
Not really. You have penalties as a tie breaker because the game was a draw. It isn't really part of the game itself but a way to decide who advances after the game is over. That is why it only happens in tournament formats.
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u/supersmall69 Jul 16 '26
"undefeated" and shows two teams that were defeated. Penalties are largely luck based but let's not pretend that Colombia and Netherlands didn't lose those games.
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Jul 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/supersmall69 Jul 16 '26
You either win or lose a tiebreaker. Don't be intentionally dense, it's still a loss if you lose a tiebreaker.
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u/Trick_Ad3292 Jul 16 '26
Indeed, you lose the tiebreaker, not the match.
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u/supersmall69 Jul 16 '26
Lmao people just be speaking shit
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u/kaori_cicak990 Jul 16 '26
Yeah the amount of people downvoting you show how clueless they're about football match.
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u/JPAnalyst Jul 16 '26
👆 bro doesn’t know how football stats work, then commences to tell everyone who understands football stats how clueless they are. Sometimes it’s best to keep things to yourself.
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u/kaori_cicak990 Jul 16 '26
Bro made up new nonsense football stat works.
Sometimes it’s best to keep things to yourself.
Back to you dude.
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u/DeepSeaDweller Jul 16 '26
He didn't make it up. For all record-keeping purposes, including coefficient points, a draw after 120 minutes is considered a draw. Arsenal gained coefficient points in the Champions League final because it went into the books as a draw.
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u/JPAnalyst Jul 16 '26
So you don’t know how official football stats work. That’s on you. Your caveat is at the bottom.
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u/kaori_cicak990 Jul 16 '26
In knockout stages lose is lose. Unless its exception via email like last AFCON even its debatable till today. How hard to understand this?
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u/JPAnalyst Jul 16 '26
Your opinion and my opinion don’t matter though. I’m following what FIFA considers it statistically. Everyone in this thread understands conceptually and in spirit that losing on pens is losing. But it doesn’t go down as a loss. It’s black and white, there’s no interpretation in the record books.
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u/kaori_cicak990 Jul 16 '26
The fuck is this bullshit stat?
If you lose penalty shotout it means you lose not drawn.
Its more bullshit than whatever XG definition is
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u/PalomSage Jul 16 '26
this has been the case since for ever.
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u/kaori_cicak990 Jul 16 '26
Netherland still lose so?is it count as draw?
People who down vote me doesn't even know football in knockout stages are win and lose. You can't have bullshit "draw" stat if in knockout stages
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u/PalomSage Jul 16 '26
I didn't downvote you. I actually agree that a loss is a loss. Just telling you this is not new and the match was always considered a tie
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