While it was definitely used sometime before 1986, it seems like English-language journalists finally became comfortable with the phrase "group of death" in the lead-up to the Mexico World Cup.
The earliest primary source mention in English I could find was in a travel column from the Times of London written on May 12, 1986, by Alan Franks. In the aftermath of the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Mexico City in 1985, Franks tried to give his World Cup-going readers some alternatives to a city he claimed "was never much to write home about even before the earthquake."
They could go to places like, say, Queretaro instead. As Franks wrote: "Queretaro had the added attraction of being the home of Scotland's group in the World Cup -- a group which has been dubbed, unfortunately perhaps, el gruppo del muerte (the group of death), which means nothing more sinister than that its outcome will be crucial to the tournament."
His Spanish wasn't quite right -- it should be "el grupo de la muerte" -- but his English was, and thus began the tradition of attempting to identify the most difficult group at the World Cup in the gravest terms possible.
In 1990, the Times claimed England were in the so-called group of death, along with Ireland, the Netherlands and Egypt. In 1994, the managers of both teams that reached the final, Italy and Brazil, claimed pretournament that they'd been stuck in the group of death. In 1998, there was no consensus on the most difficult group, but the Yugoslavia manager did say, "Our group is difficult, but nothing compared to Group D. That's the group of death."
In 2002, the Press Association used the headline "England get group of death" after they were lumped in with Argentina, Nigeria and Sweden. In 2006, a Guardian headline read, "Argentina join the Dutch in group of death" (along with Serbia and Montenegro and Côte d'Ivoire). By 2014, articles started appearing that said various countries were "fearing" or were "facing" the group of death -- even before the draw. The Guardian claimed the 2014 group with the Netherlands, Spain and Chile was the group of death, but others gave it to England, Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica.
During the 2014 World Cup, worldwide internet search interest in the phrase "group of death" saw a peak, per Google Trends. Since then, it has become a ubiquitous way of summing up the toughest group in a World Cup -- either as a talking point before the tournament or, sometimes, as an excuse after it.
As for 2026? With the World Cup's increased field size after adding more team slots and a new, forgiving knockout-round qualification procedure, it turns out that the group of death might be, well, dead.
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What were the, um, deadliest groups of death?
Although it doesn't align with the popularity trend of the phrase in English, nine of the 10 most difficult groups of all time came from tournaments before 1980.
To measure the difficulty, we're going to use the World Football Elo Ratings. These ratings go all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century. A team is either awarded or subtracted points based on the result of every game it plays, and the number of points is adjusted based on the quality of the opponent, the location of the game, the competitiveness of the match (from friendly all the way up to World Cup), and the final score.
For example, the U.S. men's national team lost 29 points when it was eliminated in the Concacaf Nations League semifinals by Panama earlier this year. The team gained eight points when it beat Guatemala 2-1 in the Concacaf Gold Cup semifinals. When Mauricio Pochettino became manager, the U.S. had a 1727 rating; today, they have a 1747 rating, which ranks them 34th in the world.
If we go by average Elo rating, then the toughest World Cup group of all time was Group 3 at the 1962 World Cup in Chile: first-ranked Brazil, fifth-ranked Czechoslovakia, sixth-ranked Spain and 15th-ranked Mexico. As if to prove it out, the Brazilians and Czechs finished first and second, respectively, advanced to the knockout stages, and then they both reached the finals, where Brazil won 3-1.
The 1962 tournament also featured the ninth-most-difficult group in World Cup history, Group 4: fourth-ranked Argentina, seventh-ranked Hungary, eighth-ranked England and 17th-ranked Bulgaria. Hungary and England advanced but had the misfortune of being matched with Group 3 in the quarterfinals.
Counting 2026, there have been 128 different groups at the World Cup. So, how could one tournament have two of the 10 most difficult groups ever? The simplest explanation: there were only 16 teams back then.
The first World Cup in 1930 had only 13 teams after Japan and Siam (now known as Thailand) withdrew and Egypt missed the boat. (Literally: the team missed the sea vessel that would've brought them to South America for the tournament in Uruguay.) But the early World Cups were actually the weakest because top teams often didn't attend, for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it cost a lot of money to travel across the Atlantic Ocean by boat for a tournament nobody had ever heard of. In 1930, per Elo, just three of the top 10 teams in the world participated.
In 1934, they were able to wrangle a more tournament-friendly 16 sides, but this one didn't have a group stage; it was single elimination from the jump. Three of the top five teams and six of the top 10 competed in Italy, but defending champions Uruguay boycotted the event because of how few European sides came to the tournament when they hosted it four years prior. The 1938 World Cup also had 16 teams with no group stage; only three of the top 10 teams participated.
Then World War II happened, and they didn't hold another World Cup until 1950 -- another weird one that once again featured only 13 teams and didn't actually have a final but rather a four-team final group, where everyone played each other and the team with the best record won. Uruguay lifted the trophy for a second time with five points and a plus-two goal differential from three matches; Brazil finished second with four points, but they outscored their opponents by 10 goals.
It wasn't until 1954 that FIFA landed on something consistent that everyone could follow: 16 teams, four groups of four, and the top two teams from each group advance to the knockouts. This is where group-stage competitiveness peaked and when the World Cup became the most popular sporting event in the world.
Harry Kane reacts to England's group stage draw for the 2026 World Cup.
The reason why nine of the top 10 most difficult groups occurred before 1980 is because, starting with the 1982 World Cup in Spain, they expanded the tournament to 24 teams. From 1954 through 1978, the average Elo rating for each tournament's Elo-approved group of death was 1923.43. A team with that rating today would be ranked 11th in the world -- one spot above Norway and two spots above Germany.
Unsurprisingly, the lethality of the group of death decreased once the tournament added eight new teams. The average Elo rating in the toughest group dropped down to 1883.25, which would rank 15th in the world right now -- one spot above Turkey and one below Uruguay.
And then, in 1998, FIFA expanded the tournament to 32 teams. This removed the weird "some third-place teams make the knockouts" setup and replaced it with eight groups of four where the top two advance. But the hardest groups? They actually got slightly harder.
The main explanation here, it seems, is that FIFA didn't expand the tournament for a second time until the sport was truly exploding across the world. The Premier League, Serie A and the Champions League had become global TV products. The United States finally had its own league. FIFA had given its brand to EA Sports, which produced a super-popular video game series under the name. Players from all across the world, too, had begun to play in Europe.
And so, the groups of death from the 32-team era were slightly better than the 24-team era. Their average Elo rating of 1888.18, which would still rank 15th in the world. This peaked in 2014 with Group B: second-ranked Spain, fifth-ranked Netherlands, ninth-ranked Chile and 35th-ranked Australia. By Elo ratings, this was the fourth-toughest group ever. And it lived up to it, given that the defending European and World Cup champs, Spain, went home before the knockout rounds.
Funnily enough, there was another really tough group in 2014 -- the 13th toughest in World Cup history -- but despite what you may have read in the news at the time, it wasn't England's group. No, it was the USA's group -- the USMNT was ranked 13th, Germany were ranked third, Portugal were ranked sixth and Ghana were 37th.
What about the 2026 World Cup? Where is the group of death?
In case you haven't heard: there will be, for the first time, 48 teams at the World Cup next summer. And, unsurprisingly, the expansion has decreased the competitive quality of each group.
If you were forced to pick a group of death for 2026, it would be the potential Group I. France are currently third in Elo, Norway sit 11th and Senegal 24th. If the highest-rated continental playoff team drawn into this group, 49th-ranked Bolivia, manages to advance, that would give the group an average Elo rating of 1865.5.
That makes Group I just the 32nd-toughest group in World Cup history, and the third-weakest group of death we've ever seen. Only the 1930 World Cup's Group 4 (the U.S., Paraguay and Belgium) and the 1954 World Cup's Group 1 (Yugoslavia, Brazil, France and Mexico) had lower average Elo ratings among the most difficult groups at a given event.
That, of course, is only if Bolivia qualifies. Suriname, ranked 93rd, or Iraq, ranked 62nd, would both drag the average down. Either way, the point stands: This summer's group of death will be the weakest of the modern era.
Julien Laurens reacts to the toughest of the World Cup groups, with France, Senegal, Norway and a playoff winner facing off in Group I.
And that's before we've even mentioned that three teams will advance from eight of the 12 groups next summer. Teams no longer need to make the top two to move on. How deadly, really, can the group be if France, Norway and Senegal could all still reach the knockout rounds?
If we flip it around, then the lack of group stage competitiveness becomes even more stark. Of the 15 weakest groups in World Cup history -- would that make them the ... "groups of birth?" -- four of them will be at the 2026 World Cup.
Group G (19th-ranked Belgium, 33rd-ranked Iran, 55th-ranked Egypt, 67th-ranked New Zealand) is the seventh weakest ever and the second weakest since 1950. Both Mexico and Canada's groups rank in the bottom 15, too -- and that's assuming the highest-rated playoff sides, Denmark and Italy, qualify in each one.
Mexico and Canada's groups grade out as especially weak, in part, because Mexico and Canada are very weak Pot 1 teams that were only seeded because they're hosts. Except that hasn't happened with the United States (if, as we've been doing, we assume Türkiye, the highest rated team from the connected playoff, advances). Group D is weak, historically, with a below-average Elo rating, but it's the fifth-hardest group in 2026.
Instead, Group D stands out for just how even it might be. Only 133 Elo points separate top-ranked Türkiye and the bottom-ranked USMNT.
No, the co-hosts won't be in the group of death because the concept of the "group of death" has officially expired, it seems. But within this expanded structure where three teams can advance, it might actually be less desirable to be lumped in with a bunch of roughly equivalent teams than with a couple power houses and a minnow you can be confident you'll beat.
We'll call these even groupings ... the group of mutually assured destruction? The group of coin flips? The group of ... someone please come up with a better name.