Just like that, the 2022 World Cup is down to its final eight teams, and what a quarterfinal field it is.
There are four previous champions represented, including the most recent one, which is seeking to do something no men’s team has achieved in six decades. There’s the party-crasher, Morocco, fresh off an elimination of Spain. And there are the GOATs new and old—even if Cristiano Ronaldo’s role with Portugal has been thrown into a world of uncertainty.
Naturally, our prognostications of the event from the week preceding it have proven to be ... let’s go with mixed. While all members of our expert panel had either Brazil or Argentina emerging from one side of the bracket (bold calls, truly), the other half has been where some mulligans are needed. Fortunately, we set the rules, so the mulligans have been granted. We’ve taken another crack at predicting the future, picking the games from Friday’s quarterfinals on down to the Dec. 18 final in Lusail.
