Every nation's run at every men's World Cup , drawn as a Sankey where each strand rises to the round that team reached
Every nation that ever entered a men's World Cup, drawn as a Sankey that climbs. Each strand is one nation in one tournament. It enters at the base and rises exactly as far as that team got: group stage, last 16, last 8, and up to the champion at the summit. A nation's width is how many times it has appeared, so the biggest rivers are the ones that keep coming back.
The format changed a lot over 92 years, and the chart shows that instead of hiding it. The second group stage only ran from 1974 to 1982, and in 1950 there was no final at all, so Uruguay reaches the top through its own round-robin channel. You can press play to watch the cup build one tournament at a time, or pick a year to light only the rounds that edition actually had.