FIFA's Training Centre publishes surprising detailed official post-match report for every game with phase-of-play tracking, basically how much of the match each team spends pressing high, sitting in a low block, building up, playing direct, and so on- so I pulled all 96 group and last-16 reports to see which of these styles actually predict winning.

**To adjust quality (methodology**):. Better teams naturally do more of everything (press more, sit back less, whatever), so any raw comparison mostly just measures quality. I stripped that out using each team's FIFA ranking and the ranking gap in that specific match, so every number below is style with quality already removed. It answers "does this team do more of X than a team of their level normally would" rather than "is this team good."

1. **Pressing wins, quality-adjusted.** Teams that press high more than their level would predict outscore expectation by 0.22 xG a match per standard deviation of extra pressing (p=.015).
2. **Sitting in a low block loses.** Same test, opposite sign: extra time in a low block costs 0.30 xG a match (p=.003). This is the clearest result in the whole dataset.
3. **What that means for the four quarter-finals:**

  
**France vs Morocco.** This is not really a clash of opposite styles, both are front-foot sides (tho its unclear if Morocco will continue to play this way in this match specifically). Morocco especially are not the bus-parking team from 2022 anymore, they build up more than almost anyone in the tournament (85th percentile) and barely sit in a low block (23rd percentile). The gap is that France do both of our two winning things more: they press more (96th percentile vs Morocco's 54th) and sit in a low block even less (4th percentile vs 23rd). So on style alone this favours France, not because Morocco are passive, but because France are more extreme on the two traits that actually predict winning.

**Norway vs England.** The one I'd flag hardest. Norway have the deepest block of any quarter-finalist and the most direct game, and their own official xG through the knockouts is negative even though they've won every match. England should be well ahead of them on paper.  
  
**Spain vs Belgium** — Spain are the most extreme presser in the entire 48-team field. Belgium's profile is far more passive by comparison.

**Argentina vs Switzerland** — Argentina have the highest build-up share of any team in the tournament, ball control rather than directness, against a Swiss side that presses. Pressing has no special edge over control teams in the data, so this one likely just comes down to quality.

**Norway vs England** — the one I'd flag hardest. Norway have the deepest block of any quarter-finalist and the most direct game, and their own official xG through the knockouts is negative even though they've won every match. England should be well ahead of them on paper.

Disclaimer: this is one tournament, 96 matches, and the quality adjustment is only as good as FIFA's pre-tournament rankings.

Source: FIFA Training Centre official match reports (phase-of-play data and xG), all 96 group and round-of-16 games, done myself in Python

[OC] Adjusted for team strength, pressing wins, sitting deep loses and implications for QFs: FIFA's own tracking data mapped onto the World Cup quarter-finals