I expected the 2026 World Cup bracket to be a sorting problem. It turned out to be a sorting problem plus a lookup table. I recently worked on a small World Cup 2026 bracket project, and the strangest part was not building the knockout bracket itself. It was handling the third-placed teams. The new format has: 48 teams 12 groups 24 teams qualifying as group winners and runners-up 8 more teams qualifying as the best third-placed teams a new Round of 32 At first, this sounded straightforward. Rank