Luka Modric Christian Pulisic GFXGetty/GOAL

World Cup performance vs population - Minnows Croatia upset the odds to finish third, Morocco exceeded expectations but giants USMNT & Germany underwhelmed… so, how did all 32 countries rank in Qatar?

Just like in 2018, Croatia proved to be a powerful force at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar despite numerous factors working against them - including a tiny population to draw talent from relative to the United States, Mexico and others.

Zlatko Dalic made the most of a talented generation led by Luka Modric, guiding Croatia to a third-place finish after a memorable quarter-final upset of Brazil.

So how did all of the competitors stack up when taking population into account? GOAL's list is calculated by working out the difference between where each country ranks in terms of population size and their final ranking at the World Cup.

When teams went out in the same round, we used points (if a team went out on penalties in the knockouts, we say they drew their match), then goal difference and then goals scored to split them.

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