The absolute elite! Why these will be the best World Cup semis ever

The semifinal matches at this World Cup are already shaping up to be absolute blockbusters, with France facing Spain and Argentina taking on England. The biggest football stars will go head-to-head, and a look at the stats shows that these matches are historic too. 

For the first time since the FIFA world ranking was introduced in 1992, the current top four teams in the world have all reached the semifinals of a World Cup tournament.

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For the first time in World Cup history, the semi-finals will be contested by the four highest rated sides from the FIFA rankings:  🇫🇷 France (1) vs Spain (3) 🇪🇸 🇦🇷 Argentina (2) vs England (4) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Cream rises to the top. 🔝 – Sunday, 12 July 2026

So we can look forward to the crème de la crème. According to data specialist Opta, this is only the third time that all four semifinalists have also been world champions. The only previous occasions were in 1970 and 1990.

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While England (1966) and Spain have one World Cup title each (2010), France has two (1998, 2018), and Argentina has the most with three (1978, 1986, and 2022).  

So here too, it is clear that this World Cup is already one of the strongest in the history of the competition. 

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.

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Source: Onefootball.com