Day 15 brings the final matchday 3 action in Groups D, E, and F, closing out 18 more fixtures across a long Thursday. With 54 of 72 group-stage matches already in the books, several spots in the round of 32 remain unresolved, and today's simultaneous kickoffs are designed precisely to prevent back-room arithmetic. Germany, already through on six points, faces Ecuador in a game where the models give no side a commanding edge — 48 percent for Germany, 27 for a draw, 25 for Ecuador — making it one of the more genuinely open contests on the slate. Group F is similarly compressed: Netherlands and Japan sit level on four points apiece, with Sweden just a point behind, so the 7 p.m. pair could produce almost any configuration. Paraguay and Australia are separated by a single point and goal-difference concerns in Group D, and their 30/37 split in the consensus is about as tight as these things get. On the third-place cutline, 8th-place Cape Verde and 9th-place Belgium are level on two points and identical goal difference, so results elsewhere could matter there too.
— the morning line, generated from the day's data