The 2026 FIFA World Cup is a gift: for football fans, naturally, but also the kind of stats nerds who salivate at the sight of a complicated sports ranking system. So, let’s kick off… As we move through the World Cup festival of football, there’s a parallel World Cup of nerdiness going on at the same time, as people pore over the permutations and combinations which make up the “ranking of third place teams” outcomes.