Is age just a number? How it could play a role in World Cup quarterfinals
How does age play a role in World Cup performance? It might help Argentina in its quarterfinal match against Switzerland, Northeastern experts say.
The average starting player in this year’s World Cup is 28 years and 117 days old, the oldest age in the last 60 years of the tournament. But how could age play a factor in a team’s performance?
Northeastern University data researchers say that while a trendline doesn’t show a clear correlation of World Cup performance related to age, they note that age could play a big role in the quarterfinal matchups, particularly in Sunday’s match between Argentina and Switzerland.
“What I would imagine is that this favors Argentina because they’re not playing a spark-filled, young energetic team,” said Brennan Klein, director of Northeastern’s NetSI Sport research group. “Both teams can be tired and old together, and Argentina in that world is just a better team than Switzerland.”
Data shows that the eight teams in the quarterfinals fall into two distinct groups: older or younger. These fielded age averages are of the players who actually set foot on the pitch during the 2026 World Cup, weighted by the minutes they played, and not just the overall roster average age that includes those on the bench.
Morocco is the youngest team, with an average fielded age of 26.6, along with Spain at 26.76, France at 27.27 and Norway at 27.36. Argentina has the oldest average group of players in the 2026 World Cup at 29.79, followed by Switzerland at 29.71 and Belgium at 29.63.
“Belgium and Argentina can count on a set of players, like (33-year-old Romelu) Lukaku or (35-year-old Kevin) De Bruyne, or (39-year-old Lionel) Messi for Argentina,” said Maddalena Torricelli, a postdoctoral researcher in sports analytics who is working with Klein on World Cup data. The younger side has stars like Spain’s Lamine Yamal, who turns 18 on July 13, 25-year-old Erling Haaland for Norway and 27-year-old Kylian Mbappé for France.
Morocco matched up against another young team in France on July 9; France won, 2-0. Younger Spain plays an older Belgium on July 10; younger Norway plays younger England on July 11; and then older Argentina plays an older Switzerland in the last quarterfinal game on July 11.
The Argentina-Switzerland game will be a World Cup quarterfinal with one of the oldest average ages at 29.6, Klein noted. The oldest average ever is 30.1.
Age might benefit Spain in its matchup against Belgium with a three-year average age difference, Klein noted.
Correlating age with performance can be complicated, and may vary on a case-by-case basis, Klein said.
“You could imagine constructing scenarios in your mind, ‘Well, what if Argentina were to play Morocco?’ and the game goes to extra time and suddenly you have Morocco, a bunch of 26-year-olds, and Argentina, a bunch of 30-year-olds,” Klein said. “You could build a story in your mind about what might happen as the game progresses.”
But World Cup winners in recent history paint two different pictures of how age could have played a role.
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The gap in average fielded age between France and Croatia during the 2018 World Cup final was almost four years. France was the second-youngest team with an average age of 25.23 when it defeated Croatia, one of the older teams at 29.15.
“When younger teams do better, it’s for a reason,” Klein said. The 2018 French team “did better than the older team because the younger team was fast and amazing and could score 1,000 goals. And those same players for France are on the team today.”
Four years later, the French team was still on the younger side with an average age of 27.09 and lost to Argentina, with an average age of 28.31.
Age didn’t seem to matter that year because Argentina had Messi, Klein said, “who was very good, and the supporting cast of players who helped unleash him.”
When looking at 172 matches that didn’t end in a tie or penalty kicks in the last three World Cups, Klein said there was a 50-50 chance of the older team winning. Age gaps didn’t matter either. But older teams won 11 of the 16 games that went into extra time, “opposite of our ‘maybe young legs last longer’ intuition,” he said, but more data would be needed to find significance.
Data also shows if a team tends to rely on younger or older players, relative to its average roster age. For example, Belgium’s fielded players are on average 2 years older than the roster, or 27.62 versus 29.63. Switzerland, Argentina, France and Norway also use players whose average fielded age is older than the roster’s average. Morocco and England use younger players, and the average fielded age for Spain matches that of their average roster age.
