Comment: 2026 World Cup ready to go up a gear now the best will face each other

World football’s biggest jamboree kicked off on June 11 but only as June ticks into July do we really have a proper tournament on our hands at long last. After that wait, though, it is at least one to get excited about.

The 72-match group stage has not been without its moments, the worry is just that it has taken more out of the players than it has added for the spectators.

If you went on holiday for the first couple of weeks and ignored the World Cup then, like missing your favourite soap opera, you would very easily be able to pick up the plotlines on your return.

Not until the last-16 gets up and running in Houston on Saturday will we have a proper elite tournament, but in amongst some fairly uninspiring second-round ties – started in fairly dreary fashion between two limited sides in South Africa and Canada on Sunday – there are a few with the potential to be crackers. And unlike far too often in the groups, these ones really matter.

Lose and you go home – immediately, not hanging around in limbo for days on end as Scotland and South Korea had to after finishing third in their groups. Knowing that keeps even the dullest match exciting.

This World Cup is a lot like the new format of the Champions League. That too is fairly dreary in its ridiculously overblown group stage, often tepid and too often one-sided in the first knockout round before exploding into life.

This year's semi-final first leg between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich – which the French side won 5-4 – was a game for the ages, and if Arsenal versus Atletico Madrid in the other last-four game was definitely not, at least it had the nerve-shredding excitement of knockout football.

With the tournament's top attacking talents into their stride, we can be optimistic of being treated to some real entertainment in the next fortnight or so. We just have to hope that getting to this point has not taken too much out of too many tanks.

In terms of favourites, the phoney war has taught us very little, an endurance test for the football nerds – guilty, your honour – rather than something to grip occasional fans.

They can quote whatever numbers they like about goals scored on bums on ludicrously expensive seats but it has all been fairly hollow. Really, the opening fortnight-and-a-half has been about enriching FIFA, fleecing genuine fans, getting Gianni Infantino’s face maximum television exposure and giving the smaller nations the moment in the sun that was the unofficial price of voting for him in the presidential elections.

France and Spain have shown how exciting they can be. Holders Argentina are yet to be tested and Cape Verde might struggle to do that too. Dogged though they have been, they are not just the only minnows to make it through, but the only team left in the tournament yet to win.

As disappointing as England's last two group matches were, the one that effectively qualified them for the knockouts – a 4-2 win over Croatia – also demonstrated what they can be capable of against top-class opposition when things click between Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and co.

So far, England have looked like one of the eight best teams in the world, but not one of the best four – which is exactly where they are. They have a chance to win this tournament, but are more likely to fall just short again.

In 10 of the 12 groups, the top seeds finished top. Germany losing to Ecaudor qualifies a shock but Germany's reserves losing what for them was a dead rubber? Less so.

Uruguay are the only genuine big-hitters to fall at the first, seemingly imploding in a combustible atmosphere created as the magic dust of former Leeds United coach Marcelo Bielsa wearing off, as it tends to over time.

That only five of the top 32 ranked teams in the tournament – and none of the top 14 – have failed to make it into the last 32 means we should have some genuine heavyweight contests.

Whoever wins out of Portugal and Croatia will have the nous to properly test what European champions Spain are made of, and facing co-hosts Mexico in Mexican altitude will test England, assuming both make it through to the last 16.

Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka are struggling for England after putting hard yards in with Arsenal. Nico Williams, Yeremy Pino, Mohamed Salah, Christian Pulisic, Raphinha, Nico Schlotterbeck, Cristian Romero, Ismael Kone and seemingly any Englishman who has ever played full-back have suffered concerning injuries during the tournament. For others it has just been about adding to their fatigue levels.

The good news is that for now at least the likes of Kane, Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, and Erling Haaland are standing up to it well. Argentina were even able to give their little genius Lionel Messi a rest in their group stage dead rubber.