Plotting England and Scotland’s routes through the World Cup

If England get off to a great start against Croatia and win their group, they will face a third-placed team in the first knockout round in Atlanta.

But the most complex World Cup gets even more confusing as you try to unravel its rivals.

There are 495 different combinations of how the groups could provide eight third-place teams advancing. We won’t go through them all.

But only five groups can meet England’s opponents: E, H, I, J or K. So any of the 20 teams currently available.

If we were to make a guess, this would probably involve the winner of the play-off route of Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Saudi Arabia, Cape Verde, Senegal, Norway, Austria, Algeria, Uzbekistan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Although no one wants to face Erling Haaland’s Norway, it would be a winnable draw for England.

Will you finish second in the group? England move on to the other half of the group, flying to Toronto to face the Group K runners-up, most likely Colombia.

If Scotland shock the world and win Group C, they will face Group F runners-up Japan or Tunisia in Houston. If they had finished second, they would have flown to Mexico to play the winners of the same group in Guadalupe, with the favorites being the Netherlands.

Finishing third and advancing means Scotland play the winners of groups A, E or I; this is determined by which groups take third place.

If Scotland win Group A, they will likely travel to Mexico City to face Mexico. For Group E it could well be Germany in Foxborough. A last-32 tie with France in Group I in East Rutherford could be in store.