World Cup Group G Preview
Group G is one of the weaker groups in the tournament. Belgium should walk it, but the battle for second between Iran, Egypt and New Zealand should be close and hard-fought, with no obvious favourite for it.
Group G fixtures (all kick-off times are in BST)
Iran vs New Zealand 16th June 2am
Belgium vs Iran 21st June 8pm
New Zealand vs Egypt 22nd June 2am
New Zealand vs Belgium 27th June 4am
Egypt vs Iran 27th June 4am
Belgium
The squad had clear strengths going forward; Jeremy Doku has been one of the best wingers in the world since the turn of the year, finally adding the end product that has long been promised; Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku have had injury-hit seasons at Napoli but are both fit and especially Lukaku, puts a Belgium shirt and he elevates; he has scored 90 goals with only Ronaldo and Messi at this tournament having scored more International goals than Lukaku the attacking depth is also good with Leandro Trossard, Charles De Ketelaere and Alexis Saelemaekers having been around the squad for a while and offering different profiles of attackers to come of the bench dependant on the game situation and Matias Fernandez-Pardo is coming off a decent first proper season of regular football and at 21 can provide the legs of the bench when Lukaku has to be rotated.
The midfield is also not a problem with De Bruyne and Youri Tielemans headlining the midfield with the evergreen Hans Vanaken as the back-up to De Bruyne after yet another excellent season for Club Brugge. Amadou Onana is also a good option, although he has played centre back in the friendlies building up to the tournament; the depth here isnt as good as in attack, with Nicolas Raskin and 37-year-old Axel Witsel the only real depth options, Raskin coming off a disappointing season with Rangers and Witsel being 37 doesn't have the legs he once did to control a game.
Defensively is where I foresee the problems for Belgium; no longer do they have the riches they once did at centre back of Kompany, Alderweireld and Kompany, hence why Onana has been filling in during the friendlies. Zeno Debast is a good option despite not being great, and he can struggle against physical forwards, so Mehdi Taremi could cause Belgium problems for Iran. Arthur Theate is a much better physical presence than Debast, but he no where near as good on the ball as the rest of the options. Brandon Mechele and Koni de Winter are not great, and against the big teams Belgium will struggle to keep the ball out of their net despite having the best shot stopper in the world in Thibaut Courtois in goal. Full back is deeper than centre back, with Maxim de Cuyper, Timothy Castagne and Thomas Meunier all able to operate on both sides, so between the three of them they should have it covered to a level.
The squad as a whole is good, but it's reliant on Doku, De Bruyne and Lukaku to score plenty, as this team will ship goals when they play better opposition.
I can't see any world where Belgium don't get at least 6 points in this group, but I also can't see them going any deeper than the quarter-finals. They're in a similar boat to the Netherlands; they have great players in certain positions but too many holes, meaning when they play a France, Spain or Argentina they're probably going to lose.
Iran
Iran are back for the 6th time since 1998 and are back with a very similar squad to the past few tournaments; they're very old, with an average age of 29.81 and the most players at 30 or over at 16 of the 26-man squad, and all their better players are in the twilight of their careers; this is a last hurrah for most of the squad.
Iran lack quality all over the pitch; their best player is Mehdi Taremi, who has been around top European clubs for a while now, currently at Olympiacos, having played for Porto and Inter Milan before that. He is the one guy in this squad who has played consistently at the elite level in his career. Alireza Jahanbaksh was a good winger when he played for Feyenoord and Brighton, but now, at 32 and playing in the second tier of Belgium, it remains to be seen if he still has the ability to affect games. Saman Ghoddos is another guy I recognise, having played for Brentford in their early Premier League seasons as an attacking midfielder/winger, but he is currently playing in the UAE. The other 23 guys in this squad I vaguely remember some of the defenders from previous tournaments, and the benefit this team has is they've all been playing together consistently for at least two tournament cycles.
The other problem this team faces is the current war between the hosts USA and Iran, meaning the team is being based in Mexico and can only enter the USA on matchdays and must leave again straight after the match; they can't stay overnight in the USA, and the manager hasn't been allowed to have a US visa so he won't be on the sidelines for the games taking place in the US.
Will the ongoing war help or hinder the team spirit in the dressing room? It remains to be seen, but the benefit for Iran is that this group is weak, so there is a world they get 4 or 6 points and finish second in the group and advance; there is also a world they drop points to New Zealand and lose to Egypt and New Zealand and get grouped if they make the knockouts i cant see them winning a game i have floor at 1 point and out ceiling at round of 32 exit.
Egypt
Having missed 2022, Mo Salah and co are back for 2026 after their group stage exit in 2022. They are still yet to win a game at the World Cup, but this group provides two great opportunities to break that duck and they come into this tournament with decent form finishing fourth in AFCON at the start of 2026 and then drawing to Spain in march and narrowly losing to Brazil a few days ago they're in decent shape especially given most of the squad are unproven at the elite level and play in the Egyptian league which is one of the best and highest paid leagues in Africa.
Egypt's fortunes at this tournament come down to two guys: Mohamed Salah and Omar Marmoush. Salah is the greatest Egyptian footballer ever by some distance, having been the best winger in the Premier League for most of the last decade for Liverpool but heartbrakingly he has never quite got Egypt over the line whether that is failing to win a game at the 2018 world cup or the two 2nd places and one 4th place of the past four AFCON's Egypt have been right there interms of Africa's best sides without getting it over the line. The problem for this tournament is Salah and Marmoush are coming off down seasons at club level. Salah only scored 7 goals and got 7 assists this past season compared to 29 goals and 18 assists the season before, and having just left Liverpool, this might be his last hurrah at the elite level, and Marmoush has only scored 3 goals this season in the league compared to 7 last season after arriving in January. But there is undeniable quality, and there is an argument that both Salah and Marmoush are in the top 3 best players in the group and against Iran and New Zealand they are undisputedly the two best players in all three squads by a distance.
The rest of the squad is full of guys who mostly play across the Middle East; there are other guys in this squad who are of the level. Mohamed Abdelmonem plays for Nice in Ligue 1, who, while they didn't have a good season, narrowly survived the drop; he is playing at a higher level than anyone in the Iran and New Zealand squad bar Chris Wood and Mehdi Taremi. The rest of the front three, with Salah on the right and Marmoush up front, will likely be Trezeguet starting on the left; the former Aston Villa man is now back in Egypt at Al Ahly but with 96 caps knows how to get the best out of Salah. Then there is the exciting new 18-year-old in the squad, Hamza Abdelkarim, who has just signed for Barcelona from the Egyptian league after a successful loan spell, so he must have something about him if Barcelona are going to invest heavily in his future. He is a striker and will likely serve as the backup should Marmoush get injured.
Egypt should finish second in this group given Iran's off-the-pitch problems and New Zealand's lack of quality, and could give Belgium a scare given their shaky defence and Egypt's potent attack. Egypt are not a team anyone will want to play in the round of 32 given their attack, but I find it difficult to see them progressing past the round of 32. As for the floor, I think there is a world they draw to both Iran and New Zealand and finish on 2 points and go out in the groups, but this shouldn't happen given they're the only team of the three with any elite talent.
New Zealand
The only undefeated team at the 2010 World Cup returns for the third team and get used to seeing them at World Cups given Oceania now has an automatic berth, and since Australia moved to Asia in 2006, New Zealand have absolutely dominated the region, losing just 2 games to Oceanian opposition since. Chris Wood is returning from 2010, when he was a spring chicken at age 17; he is now 33 and the only beacon of hope for this team; they just don't have the depth due to Football being well down the food chain in New Zealand there are players in the squad who play for Port Vale and Braintree town while most of the team play in the top league of smaller leagues or the second divisions of the major nations.
The rest of the names outside of Chris Wood who are close to the level of Egypt and Iran are Tyler Bindon, who, like Wood, is on the books at Nottingham Forest and has been on loan at Sheffield United this season, playing 26 times at centre back; Liberato Cacace plays left back for Wrexham. Marko Stamenic has been very good in midfield for Swansea this season. Ryan Thomas has been playing in centre midfield in the top flight of the Netherlands since 2013 for PEC Zwolle and PSV, and Sarpreet Singh used to be on the books of Bayern Munich as a tricky winger when he was coming through but has now ended up back in New Zealand with Wellington Phoenix at age 27 after never really finding a consistent club in Europe.
As you can see by the tier of club, New Zealand are absolutely not the worst national team in the world, but they just lack the quality to compete on the world stage, as shown by their friendly results recently; they've had some terrible friendly results in the run-up to the tournament having only won once since the 8th June 2025 they have drawn to Norway and beaten Chile in that time but they lost 4-0 to Haiti last week they lost 2-0 to Finland who were no where near qualifying for this tournament out of Europe they dont tend to lose by big margins in these friendlies often by a goal or 2 as seen by losing 1-0 to England, 2-0 to Ecuador and 2-1 to Colombia meaning they will give Egypt and Iran a game and may well sneak a point in one of the two put progressing through this group even given its lack of quality across the board but if you want the best ever player your national team has ever produced to play it up front and maybe Chris Wood can drag the to three or four points and hope thats enough.
The floor of this team is 0 points straight out in the groups, but they definitely can get out of this group even if that is drawing to Iran and Egypt and losing by the least margin to Belgium of the three and going through on 2 points; I can't see, however, a way they can win a knockout game.
Predictions
In my predictions, Iran fails to progress as one of the 8 best third-place teams
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