A Belarus point-scoring machine.

It’s the final day of the group stages at the World Championships.  After today every match we talk about will be an eliminator.

The last two places in the knock out rounds will be decided today.  In Group C, this comes down to a straight head to head between Belarus and Saudi Arabia.  Both teams have only one win in the tournament so far – and that against South Korea who have disappointed throughout – but whereas Saudi have scored only sparingly (80 goals in four games) and not really contested the matches they’ve lost, Belarus have the championship’s top scorer (Siarhei Rutenka) and blew a 5-goal half-time lead against Slovenia and weren’t embarrassed against Poland.  They should have enough in defence to limit Saudi’s goalscoring and should be able to score pretty easily as well.  Anything but Belarus progression would be a surprise.  The match starts at 2.45pm (UK).

Group D is a bit more fiddly.  In their head to head Algeria and Egypt tied.  The next determiner is therefore goal difference.  At the moment, Algeria are level on goal difference and Egypt are -18 but today Egypt play Australia who averaging losing by 24 points.  Algeria have to face Hungary.  If Egypt win by enough to go ahead of Algeria’s goal difference – and Algeria lose to Hungary then by my reckoning it is Egypt who will progress.  The only sure thing is that Egypt will beat Australia by a big margin and who goes through may very well come down to how interested a Hungarian side that have already qualified manage to stay.  Match times are 3.45pm for Egypt v Australia and 8.15pm for Hungary v Algeria.

The other games of the day are: in Group C, Poland against South Korea (5pm) and Serbia v Slovenia (7.15pm); in Group D, Spain v Croatia (7pm).