World Cup: Who will play in Houston for Round of 32 and Round of 16?

The World Cup has been a hit in Houston, drawing three straight crowds of 68,000-plus with two more group stage matches to play that will host similar hordes of fans.

Then, things get amped up a couple notches.

After group play ends this week, the tournament moves to the knockout rounds with Houston hosting a Round of 32 match on June 29 and a Round of 16 meeting on July 4. It’s still to be determined who will head to Houston for those games, but the picture is beginning to get clearer.

Next week’s Round of 32 game in Houston will pit the winner of Group C against the runner-up in Group F. As it stands now, that would be Brazil vs. Japan.

The Group C winner will be decided Wednesday when Brazil closes the group stage against Scotland and Morocco finishes with Haiti. Brazil and Morocco are currently tied at 1-0-1 in the group stage, including a draw against each other. In order for Morocco to supplant Brazil as the top team in Group C, it not only would need to beat Haiti, but also make up its two-goal difference with Brazil, assuming Brazil takes care of business and pulls out a win over Scotland.

Scotland has an outside shot of winning the group, but it would have to pull off an upset of Brazil and hope Morocco got beat by Haiti. Both are highly unlikely.

Group F will be decided Thursday when the Netherlands faces Tunisia and Japan plays Sweden. Netherlands and Japan also are tied at 1-0-1 in the group stage, including a draw against each other, but the Dutch seem like a cinch to take the group. All they need is to beat Tunisia by more goals than Japan beats Sweden. That shouldn’t be a problem since the Netherlands entered the World Cup ranked eighth in the world while Tunisia was 45th.

That would leave the runner-up spot and a trip to Houston up for grabs between the winner of the Japan-Sweden match, likely Japan, who entered the tournament ranked 18th in the world. 

The Round of 16 matchup in Houston is a bit murkier. It will include the winners between the runners-up in Groups A and B against the winners of the Group F leader and the Group C runner-up. The Group A runner-up likely will be South Korea, while the runner-up in Group B likely will be the loser of Thursday’s Canada-Switzerland match with the winner taking the group. In case of a draw, Canada wins the group and Switzerland is the runner-up.

The Group F winner looks like it will be the Netherlands, which would face the Group C runner-up, which likely will be Morocco.

That means Houston’s Round of 16 matchup would feature the winner of South Korea vs. Canada/Switzerland against the winner of Netherlands-Morocco, which could mean the return of the Dutch’s Oranje to Houston.