Netherlands and Morocco meet in the Round of 32 on Tuesday morning with everything still to play for and nothing to carry over from the group stage. A place in the last sixteen is the only currency that matters now, and neither side has travelled to this World Cup to turn around at the first knockout hurdle.
The Dutch arrive as slight favourites, and the head-to-head record, however slender, nudges in their direction. The one previous meeting between these sides ended 2-1 to the Netherlands in a friendly on 31 May 2017, which is hardly a definitive guide to what follows nine years later, but it is the only data point history offers. Morocco, for their part, will know they are the underdog on paper and will likely treat that as motivation rather than burden.
Both squads report no fresh absences, which is a welcome piece of symmetry. Full fitness across both camps means neither manager faces the kind of selection headache that can distort a team's shape in the opening exchanges of a knockout game. What you see in the warm-up is, broadly, what you get on the pitch.
Morocco have demonstrated in recent tournaments that they are an organised, hard-working side capable of suffocating better-fancied opponents. The Netherlands, historically one of Europe's most decorated footballing nations and three-time World Cup finalists, bring technical quality and an expectation to match. Whether that expectation settles them or weighs on them in the early minutes will be one of the defining questions of the evening.
Tactically, this has the shape of a match where the Dutch will seek to control territory and Morocco will look to be compact, difficult to break down, and dangerous on the counter. Games with that structure tend to hinge on a single moment of quality or a set-piece, and the team that manufactures those moments with greater frequency usually wins.
The data leans firmly towards a Netherlands victory or a draw, with the models placing each outcome at 45 per cent and leaving Morocco only a 10 per cent chance of advancing in regulation. Those numbers suggest a tight, grinding affair that Morocco can stay competitive in, even if they are not expected to win it. Knockout football, of course, has a long and cheerful history of ignoring what it is expected to do.