England’s World Cup Road Just Got Complicated. Here’s Who They Could Face Now.

England didn’t lose on Tuesday night, but they didn’t exactly win either. And that goalless draw against Ghana in Boston has opened up a whole mess of possibilities for who the Three Lions might run into during the knockout stage.

The good news: Thomas Tuchel’s side is almost certainly through. Four points from two games — a 4-2 win over Croatia and then the 0-0 with Ghana — puts them in solid shape. Panama’s loss to Croatia helped too, because it means England can’t fall lower than third in Group L. And with the tournament expanding to 32 teams in the knockout round, four points should be enough even if they finish as one of the best third-place teams.

Only three times has England failed to get out of the group stage at a World Cup. The last time was 12 years ago in Brazil, when they finished behind Costa Rica, Uruguay and Italy. Since then they’ve made a fourth-place run and a quarterfinal exit. So the floor is higher than it used to be.

How England can still win the group

The tiebreaker here is head to head, not goal difference. That’s a FIFA thing for this tournament. So if England beats Panama in the final group game, they likely take Group L — as long as they match or better Ghana’s result against Croatia. But here’s the catch: Ghana can still jump them on goal difference if England doesn’t win by enough. So a comfortable margin against Panama would be smart.

Win the group and England draws one of the best third-place teams from Groups E, H, I, J or K. As of Wednesday morning, that opponent would be Cape Verde — a tournament debutant that has somehow held Spain and Uruguay to draws in Group H. That’d be a round of 32 game in Atlanta on July 1.

What happens if England finishes second

Then things get interesting. The runner-up in Group L faces the runner-up from Group K. Right now that’s Portugal, which would be a brutal draw for July 1. Cristiano Ronaldo’s squad just pounded Uzbekistan 5-0 on Tuesday, and they sit second in Group K behind Colombia on goal difference. England and Portugal have history — that 2006 quarterfinal in Gelsenkirchen still stings for anyone old enough to remember it.

If somehow England slips to a third-place finish (unlikely but not impossible), they’d draw the Group K winner. As it stands, that would be Colombia on July 4. Not exactly a soft landing either.

The bottom line: England controls its own path with a win over Panama. But if they stumble or just don’t score enough, the knockout road gets much harder in a hurry. Tuchel knows this. The players know this. And on July 1, we’ll see if that Ghana draw was a minor hiccup or a sign of bigger problems.