MetLife Stadium · New York
World Cup 2026
GROUP I
France · Senegal · Norway · Iraq
The Group of Death. France, Senegal, Norway, Iraq. Haaland vs Mbappé on Matchday 2.
Table
Standings
| Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1🇫🇷France | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2🇸🇳Senegal | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3🇳🇴Norway | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 4🇮🇶Iraq | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Profiles
The Four Teams
🇫🇷
France
FIFA ranking #1
Manager
Didier Deschamps
Key Player
Kylian Mbappé
Real Madrid
World Cup Pedigree
2× champions
🇸🇳
Senegal
FIFA ranking #14
Manager
Pape Thiaw
Key Player
Sadio Mané
Al-Nassr
World Cup Pedigree
4 appearances · best: Quarter-finals (2002)
🇳🇴
Norway
FIFA ranking #31
Manager
Ståle Solbakken
Key Player
Erling Haaland
Manchester City
World Cup Pedigree
4 appearances · best: Round of 16 (1998)
🇮🇶
Iraq
FIFA ranking #56
Manager
Graham Arnold
Key Player
Aymen Hussein
Al-Khor
World Cup Pedigree
2 appearances · best: Group stage
Schedule
Fixtures By Matchday
Matchday 2
Editorial
Group Narrative
Group I is the tournament’s heavyweight collision. France arrive with the deepest squad and the clearest favorite status, but Senegal have already shown they can live in elite company.
Norway turn every match into a question of service and space for Erling Haaland. Iraq, meanwhile, are the group’s emotional underdog and will try to drag games into tense, narrow margins.
France vs Norway gives the group its poster: Mbappé against Haaland on a World Cup stage. But Senegal may be the team that decides who actually controls the section.
From The Journal
Related Reads
2026-07-19
Dead Rubber
It was the game nobody wanted to play, the fixture the schedule apologizes for. With nothing left to win, the only thing on the field was character — and ten goals later, in a match that counted for nothing, you could see exactly who these players were.
9 min read
2026-07-16
The View From Above
France came to the semifinal with the most feared attack in the tournament and never laid a glove on Spain. The reason was not quality, and it was not effort. Great midfielders do not see more football than everyone else. They see it earlier — and Rodri spent ninety minutes playing ahead of the match.
9 min read
2026-07-13
Braut
To reach the top as a striker you need at least one extreme quality. Erling Braut Haaland is a stack of them — pace, power, and a finishing certainty that borders on the inhuman. At his first World Cup, the purest number nine of his era turned the lot of them loose on Brazil.
5 min read