FOX Sports put Friday’s Day 23 World Cup slate in the spotlight with three Round of 32 matches: Australia against Egypt in Dallas, Argentina against Cape Verde and Colombia against Ghana in Kansas City. All three games air on FOX and stream live and on demand on FOX One.
That is why soccer games today is drawing heavy search traffic. It is a knockout day, and the schedule brings one of the sport’s biggest names straight into the frame. Argentina reached Friday by winning Group J by multi-goal margins in all three games, then kept rolling with a 10-match winning run. Lionel Messi, 39 years old, is tied for the tournament lead with six goals and has 19 World Cup goals overall.
The first match of the day opens in Dallas, where Australia arrives after four points in Group D. Popovic began by benching veteran starter and now former captain Matthew Ryan, and Beach, who plays domestically for Melbourne City and has only five caps, helped Australia beat Turkiye 2-0 and draw Paraguay 0-0. Egypt comes in with five points from Group G, but Mohamed Salah was forced off in the group finale against Iran with a hamstring strain, even as Hossam Hassan said he was optimistic the forward will play.
That fitness call matters because Egypt has never won a World Cup knockout match, and neither has Australia. The margin for error disappears in the Round of 32, where one loss sends a team home and turns every lineup decision into a gamble. For Egypt, the question is whether Salah can start or even finish against an opponent that has already shown it can survive tight games.
Cape Verde has become the tournament’s best underdog story by going unbeaten through three draws and finishing second in Group H. A 0-0 draw with Spain was the result that announced it to a wider audience, and Vozinha has been outstanding in goal. Colombia, meanwhile, won Group K after beating Uzbekistan and DR Congo and drawing Portugal 0-0, with Luis Diaz and James Rodriguez driving the attack. Ghana advanced as one of the third-place finishers from Group L, but it managed only 15 shots in the group stage and will lean on Carlos Queiroz, who has quickly repaired the defense.
FOX and FOX One have made the viewing part simple. The football is the harder part. Friday closes with Colombia heavily favored over Ghana, but the day begins with Australia and Egypt, where Salah’s availability could decide whether the first knockout game of the day feels routine or restless long before kickoff. The exact times for the three matches are still the one piece viewers are left to track.
