Japan and Morocco face old order giants in the hope of a brave new world | Jonathan Wilson

Two eye-catching last-32 ties offer hope of a winner from outside the traditional powers – Brazil and the Netherlands could be gone

The World Cup exists in a state of perpetual flux. It goes to new territories. It gets bigger. It experiments with second group phases and replaces playoffs for sides level on points with goal difference then head-to-head. And still one of the same eight countries from western Europe or South America wins it.

Since Argentina in 1978, there have been two new winners, and those were France and Spain, from the heart of Uefa, their success based on maximising the advantages of being European and wealthy; no countries have been so successful at industrialising youth production, so much so that they now provide the models for every country seeking to invest in academy programmes.

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