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Everyone is using artificial intelligence to do, well, everything. With the World Cup starting on June 11, you can’t scroll for more than a couple of minutes without hitting another post or video or reel of someone telling you how they used AI to predict the World Cup.
So, I decided to use my own supercomputer to predict every game of the 2026 World Cup — the supercomputer is called “my brain.”
There will be 104 matches at the 2026 World Cup, and … OK fine, I lied. I have only predicted 103 of them. I skipped the third-place game because self-care is important.
This is already the biggest World Cup ever, with the field having been expanded to 48 teams, which means we will have 38.5% more matches than we did four years ago. It’s a lot.
With that, here is what happens when a human being predicts the outcome of every game of the 2026 World Cup.
ESPNGroup A analysis and predictionsMexico: 1800 Elo rating (ranked 14th of 48), 95% chance of advancing
South Korea: 1754 rating (20th), 77% chance of advancing
Czechia: 1691 rating (31st), 60% chance of advancing
South Africa: 1526 rating (45th), 35% chance of advancing
The ratings and predictions you see above come from the DTAI Analytics Lab at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. It’s run by Jesse Davis, an American from Wisconsin, and they’re consistently producing the most cutting-edge, public-facing analytics work in the soccer world. Every four years, they also try to predict the World Cup, using a model that has outperformed bookmakers in previous tournaments.
But do not take that as betting advice! The model has outperformed the implied probabilities derived from bookmaker odds once you remove the vig (the sportsbook’s commission), not the actual odds you would’ve been able to place a bet against.
Anyway, the DTAI odds will be our baseline to work off of going forward. But I’m also not going to mirror those odds in my predictions because that would be boring. It would be more accurate, it would be less fun — and it would also be wrong.
Why? Even if, say, all the top 10 teams in the tournament have a 90% chance of advancing out of their group, that would mean there’s only a 35% chance that all 10 of them get out of their group. So, we’re going to try to identify the favorites and underdogs most likely to get sent home, too.
As for Group A, the main thing to know is that Mexico are heavy favorites for two reasons:
(1) They get to play every game at home. In European club soccer, the difference between playing the same team home and away is essentially the difference between adding or removing peak Lionel Messi from your lineup.
(2) They lucked out with the draw. Neither South Korea nor Czechia have the talent levels of golden generations past, while South Africa are one of the weakest teams in the tournament.
Mexico 2, South Africa 0
South Korea 1, Czechia 1
Czechia 1, South Africa 0
Mexico 1, South Korea 1
South Africa 1, South Korea 2
Czechia 1, Mexico 2
1. Mexico: 7 points, plus-3 goal differential
2. South Korea: 5 points, plus-1 goal differential
3. Czechia: 4 points, even goal differential
4. South Africa: 0 points, minus-4 goal differential
Canada: 1741 rating (24th), 94% chance of advancing
Switzerland: 1781 rating (16th), 94% chance of advancing
Bosnia & Herzegovina: 1589 Elo (41st), 46% chance of advancing
Qatar: 1591 Elo (40th), 29% chance of advancing
Much like Mexico, hosts Jesse Marsch & Co. landed a favorable draw. Not only do the Canadians get to play all their games at home, but they get to play against two of the bottom 10 teams in the tournament.
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If we look at all competitive games registered in the Opta database for all 48 World Cup participants since the start of 2024, there are four teams with negative goal differentials, and two of them are in Group B: Qatar and Bosnia & Herzegovina.
As you might expect from a team managed by the only guy (Jesse Marsch) to manage all three of Red Bull’s main clubs — New York, Salzburg, then Leipzig — Canada are going to press when they can. They’re among the leaders in the field in all the major pressing metrics: passes allowed per defensive action (PPDA), opponent pass completion percentage and the start distance from goal of their average possession.
In the past, Marsch has told me, “If we’re winning 2-0, I’m always thinking of 3-0 and rarely thinking of 2-1.” And that’s evident with Canada, too. They haven’t conceded a ton of shots, but when you break their press, you can get in on goal. Only two teams have allowed higher quality shots, as measured by expected goals per shot conceded.
Their toughest match will come against Switzerland, who are the U.S. men’s national team of Europe — a team that continues to produce top-level talent you’ll see playing in the Champions League every Tuesday and Wednesday but is still looking for its first few superstars.
Unfortunately, attacking midfielder Xherdan Shaqiri retired from the national team two years ago, meaning the odds of a player stripping completely naked after scoring a goal are significantly lower than they’ve been in any of the past three tournaments.
Canada 2, Bosnia & Herzegovina 1
Qatar 0, Switzerland 2
Switzerland 2 vs. Bosnia & Herzegovina 1
Canada 1, Qatar 0
Switzerland 1, Canada 1
Bosnia & Herzegovina 0, Qatar 1
1. Switzerland: 7 points, plus-3 goal differential
2. Canada: 7 points, plus-3 goal differential
3. Qatar: 3 points, minus-2 goal differential
4. Bosnia & Herzegovina: 0 points, minus-3 goal differential
Brazil: 1885 rating (5th), 97% chance of advancing
Morocco: 1736 rating (25th), 91% chance of advancing
Scotland: 1684 rating (32nd), 66% chance of advancing
Haiti: 1583 rating (42nd), 16% chance of advancing
According to DraftKings Sportsbook, Brazil have the fourth-best odds of winning the World Cup — after the three consensus favorites: Spain, France and England. This is the same team … that finished fifth in CONMEBOL World Cup qualifying.
Given how many people bet on the World Cup, I can’t help but think that this is one of the rare examples where an outsized amount of public money is boosting a team’s odds. They’ve won five World Cups, they have the fun yellow jerseys, they have a bunch of guys who only go by one name, etc.
The talent of this team, though, isn’t quite what it used to be. The roster features multiple players playing in both Saudi Arabia and Russia. And outside of 34-year-old, possibly-not-healthy Neymar, no one else has scored more than 11 goals for the national team.
That stated, Morocco — with their fantastic defense and their lawyer-awarded AFCON title — seem like the only team likely to challenge Carlo Ancelotti’s group in the group stages. Scotland have a bunch of familiar names, and they’ll be frustrating to play against, but the results haven’t been there. Meanwhile Haiti have been outscored 8-2 in the three matches they’ve played against World Cup teams since the start of 2024.
Brazil 0, Morocco 1
Haiti 1 vs. Scotland 2
Scotland 0, Morocco 0
Brazil 3, Haiti 0
Scotland 0, Brazil 1
Morocco 2, Haiti 0
1. Morocco: 7 points, plus-3 goal differential
2. Brazil: 6 points, plus-3 goal differential
3. Scotland: 4 points, even goal differential
4. Haiti: 0 points, minus-6 goal differential
United States: 1765 rating (18th), 78% chance of advancing
Türkiye: 1771 rating (17th), 73% chance of advancing
Australia: 1747 rating (22nd), 64% chance of advancing
Paraguay: 1706 rating (28th), 58% chance of advancing
A quick little lesson on probabilities here: All four teams in Group D are more likely to advance to the knockout rounds than not because of the eight third-place teams who will advance. And yet, it is impossible for all four teams from Group D to advance to the knockout rounds because every fourth-place team will be automatically eliminated.
So, just how evenly matched are these teams? The rating gap between the U.S. and Paraguay is smaller than the gap between England and France, the fourth- and third-ranked teams, respectively. And if you’re wondering why the USMNT has the best odds to advance despite the second-best rating, it’s because all their games are home games.
I’ve written multiple times about how I don’t think this is a great draw for the USMNT, and here’s an example of why.
Take Ecuador, a similarly rated team to the Americans. They’re in a group with Germany, one of the pre-tournament favorites, and a very talented Ivory Coast team. However, Ecuador has a 92% chance of getting out of their group because the fourth-place team in that group is Curaçao, who have the third-worst rating in the tournament.
If you finish in third place with at least three points, it’s very unlikely that you don’t make the knockouts. And in a group like Ecuador’s that has one truly weak side, it’s very likely that three points will be enough to land you in third.
In Group D, though, anyone can beat anyone, so there’s a very real chance that three points won’t be enough to finish third — either because another team with three points has the tiebreaker over you or because everyone else nabs at least four points.
USMNT 2, Paraguay 0
Australia 1, Türkiye 1
USMNT 1, Australia 1
Türkiye 1, Paraguay 2
Paraguay 1, Australia 1
Türkiye 2, USMNT 1
1. USMNT: 4 points, plus-1 goal differential
2. Türkiye: 4 points, even goal differential
3. Paraguay: 4 points, minus-1 goal differential
4. Australia: 3 points, even goal differential
Germany: 1867 rating (8th), 97% chance of advancing
Ecuador: 1793 rating (15th), 92% chance of advancing
Ivory Coast: 1618 rating (37th), 79% chance of advancing
Curaçao: 1520 rating (46th), 9% chance of advancing
I think this might even be a little too high for Curaçao. Both Germany and the Ivory Coast have more talented teams than their ratings suggest, so their high ends are both a little higher than what’s listed here.
Ecuador, meanwhile, are one of the strongest defensive teams in the tournament because of two defenders who just started the Champions League final, Arsenal’s Piero Hincapié and Paris Saint-Germain’s Willian Pacho, and one of the best defensive midfielders in the world in Chelsea’s Moisés Caicedo.
I doubt there will be a ton of jockeying for places during the group stages because we don’t really know who is going to end up where. But if everything goes chalk, then the winner of this group would play France in the round of 16 while second place, according to the DTAI projections, would get Brazil in the round of 16 and England in the quarterfinals — both of whom are lower-rated than France.
Germany 5, Curaçao 0
Ivory Coast 0, Ecuador 1
Germany 3, Ivory Coast 1
Ecuador 2, Curaçao 0
Ecuador 1, Germany 1
Curaçao 1, Ivory Coast 3
1. Germany: 7 points, plus-7 goal differential
2. Ecuador: 7 points, plus-3 goal differential
3. Ivory Coast: 3 points, minus-1 goal differential
4. Curaçao: 0 points, minus-9 goal differential
Netherlands: 1868 rating (7th), 92% chance of advancing
Japan: 1833 rating (10th), 90% chance of advancing
Sweden: 1701 rating (29th), 49% chance of advancing
Tunisia: 1583 rating (43rd), 36% chance of advancing
Losing Kaoru Mitoma is a huge bummer for Japan. He peaked a little too late to become the kind of player the best clubs would’ve paid close to nine figures for, but he has genuinely played like one of those guys over the past three seasons.
Expected possession value is a stat that sums up how much a player’s on-ball actions increased his team’s chances of scoring a goal. And since 2023-24, the only players ahead of him are two starters for Manchester City, the last two Premier League players of the year, and the two best attackers on the team that just won the Premier League:
I’m focusing on Japan here because they’ve been genuinely excellent for a while now — hence their top-10 place in the Elo ratings. And they’re one of the few teams we can expect to actually see an organized defensive press from this summer.
If you’ve been upset about how the USMNT plays at any point over the past half-decade, Japan would be a legitimate reason for why. But only a couple of teams can afford losing their best attacker and still expect to make a deep run — Japan aren’t one of them.
One quick note on Sweden: they won zero games and finished last in their World Cup qualifying group.
Japan 2, Netherlands 1
Sweden 2, Tunisia 1
Netherlands 2, Sweden 0
Tunisia 0, Japan 1
Tunisia 0, Netherlands 3
Japan 1, Sweden 1
1. Japan: 7 points, plus-2 goal differential
2. Netherlands: 6 points, plus-4 goal differential
3. Sweden: 4 points, minus-1 goal differential
4. Tunisia: 0 points, minus-5 goal differential
Belgium: 1816 rating (12th), 88% chance of advancing
Iran: 1757 Elo (19th), 74% chance of advancing
Egypt: 1632 Elo (35th), 67% chance of advancing
New Zealand: 1599 Elo (39th), 41% chance of advancing
I recently saw something in some social media feed that labeled Belgium as a “potential dark horse” for the 2026 World Cup. Can you be a “dark horse” for four World Cups in a row? The reality is that this team is now part of the “Everyone Else” pack beyond the top seven or eight teams.
Jérémy Doku is the only real star on the roster — outside of the mid-30s former stars like Romelu Lukaku and Kevin De Bruyne. Belgium, then, seem primed to suffer an upset here. After all, they didn’t even get out of the group stages of the 2022 World Cup, when the roster was significantly better.
But they landed in a relatively easy group. Iran have the second-oldest roster after Panama. Egypt’s two stars (Mohamed Salah and Omar Marmoush) had down seasons after great years in 2024-25. And New Zealand, well, they have a better shot than any of the other bottom-tier teams at getting out of their group.
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Belgium 2, Egypt 1
Iran 1, New Zealand 1
Belgium 1, Iran 1
New Zealand 2, Egypt 1
New Zealand 1, Belgium 2
Egypt 0, Iran 0
1. Belgium : 7 points, plus-2 goal differential
2. New Zealand: 4 points, even goal differential
3. Iran: 3 points, even goal differential
4. Egypt: 1 point, minus-2 goal differential
Spain: 1979 rating (1st), 99% chance of advancing
Uruguay: 1803 Elo (13th), 86% chance of advancing
Saudi Arabia: 1616 Elo (38th), 36% chance of advancing
Cape Verde: 1489 Elo (47th), 34% chance of advancing
According to the crowdsourced numbers from Transfermarkt, there are currently six players in the world who would command a transfer fee of €200 million or more. Spain and France are the only teams that have two of those players on their rosters. Not coincidentally, Spain and France are the two favorites to win the World Cup.
Put another way, the combined transfer value of Lamine Yamal and Pedri is €350 million. The combined transfer value of the entire squads of Saudi Arabia and Cape Verde, put together, is €96 million. Uruguay, meanwhile, just edge Yamal and Pedri, by about €50 million.
But that’s really just putting some numbers and faces on something you already know: This group has one huge favorite for first, another huge favorite for second and two other teams that will be scrapping it out for third.
Spain 5, Cape Verde 0
Saudi Arabia 0, Uruguay 2
Spain 3, Saudi Arabia 0
Uruguay 3, Cape Verde 0
Uruguay 1, Spain 2
Cape Verde 2, Saudi Arabia 1
1. Spain: 9 points, plus-9 goal differential
2. Uruguay: 6 points, plus-4 goal differential
3. Cape Verde: 3 points, minus-7 goal differential
4. Saudi Arabia: 0 points, minus-6 goal differential
France: 1939 rating (3rd), 95% chance of advancing
Senegal: 1727 rating (26th), 83% chance of advancing
Norway: 1746 rating (23rd), 72% chance of advancing
Iraq: 1653 rating (34th), 20% chance of advancing
The DTAI model is a little lower on Norway and Senegal than I am.
International soccer is a dumbed-down version of the game. Teams don’t have enough time to practice together, so they can’t coordinate the same kinds of high-pressing and possession-based patterns that you’ll see in Europe’s top leagues. It helps, instead, to have a bunch of decent defenders, a guy who creates the chances and a guy who scores the chances.
Norway have one of the best creators of chances in Martin Odegaard and the world’s best scorer of chances in Erling Haaland. Senegal, meanwhile, have a bunch of Europe-based talent that we already know works together because they won the version of the 2026 African Cup of Nations where the winner was determined on the field rather than by bureaucrats.
France are the most talented team in the tournament. It looks like they’re going to lose William Saliba to injury, and they already lost Hugo Ekitike to a torn Achilles. They’re the only country that could lose two players that good and still be among the favorites.
But to put the difficulty of their group into perspective: They’re the third favorites, according to the DTAI Lab, to win the World Cup, and they only have the seventh-best odds to advance out of the round of 32.
France 2, Senegal 1
Iraq 0, Norway 2
France 3, Iraq 1
Senegal 1, Norway 1
Norway 1, France 1
Senegal 3, Iraq 1
1. France: 7 points, plus-3 goal differential
2. Norway: 5 points, plus-2 goal differential
3. Senegal: 4 points: plus-1 goal differential
4. Iraq: 0 points, minus-6 goal differential
Argentina: 1965 rating (2nd), 98% chance of advancing
Austria: 1749 rating (21st), 65% chance of advancing
Algeria: 1659 rating (33rd), 64% chance of advancing
Jordan: 1628 rating (36th), 35% chance of advancing
While I’m not particularly bullish on Argentina’s chances to win the World Cup, they’re still massive favorites in this group. Despite an aging squad with barely any turnover from 2022, the combined market value of their team is more than Jordan, Austria and Algeria put together.
Algeria are one of the younger teams in this tournament, while Austria are one of the few teams that should be able to put out a cohesive and aggressive press. While it’s unlikely that either team has the talent to shock Lionel Messi & Co., they both have the broad outlines of the kinds of teams that have shocked sides that held on for one cycle too many in the past.
It’s particularly important for Argentina to win this group, too. If they finish in second place, their most likely opponent in the round of 32? Spain.
Argentina 1, Algeria 0
Austria 3, Jordan 1
Argentina 2, Austria 2
Jordan 1, Algeria 1
Jordan 0, Argentina 3
Algeria 1, Austria 1
1. Argentina: 7 points, plus-4 goal differential
2. Austria: 5 points, plus-2 goal differential
3. Algeria: 2 points, minus-1 goal differential
4. Jordan: 1 point, minus-5 goal differential
Portugal: 1874 rating (6th), 89% chance of advancing
Colombia: 1855 rating (9th), 90% chance of advancing
Uzbekistan: 1711 rating (27th), 52% chance of advancing
Congo DR: 1538 rating (44th), 35% chance of advancing
This group reminds me of Germany’s in 2018. Frankly, it reminds me a lot of Germany’s general situation, too.
Coming off the World Cup win, Germany entered 2018 as one of the favorites — but they were also quite skewed toward attack, and they were trying to thread the needle between multiple generations of talent. The group in 2018 didn’t contain any powerhouses, but all the teams, Sweden, Mexico and South Korea, were solid. Germany won one game, finished last in the group and went home early.
Portugal just won the UEFA Nations League. They’re one of the favorites this summer. They’re heavily skewed toward attacking because they’re managed by Roberto Martinez. And they’re opting for a lineup that sits 40-something Cristiano Ronaldo atop a group of players that you might even consider to be two generations behind him.
On top of that, Colombia are the ninth-best team according to DTAI’s ratings. Uzbekistan might seem like a minnow, but their rating sits them between Senegal and Paraguay. And while Congo DR don’t have much of a track record of success, they have much more talent than we’d expect from a team of their stature. By combined market value, they’re right between Bosnia & Herzegovina and South Korea.
As such, DTAI gives Portugal an 89% chance of getting out of their group — just the 16th-highest number among all participants. I’m forcing myself to pick one favorite to go home early, and here you have it.
Portugal 1, Congo DR 2
Uzbekistan 1, Colombia 2
Portugal 2, Uzbekistan 1
Colombia 1, Congo DR 0
Colombia 2, Portugal 0
Congo DR 1, Uzbekistan 2
1. Colombia: 9 points, plus-4 differential
2. Uzbekistan: 3 points, minus-1 differential
3. Congo DR: 3 points, minus-1 differential
4. Portugal: 3 points, minus-2 differential
England: 1886 rating (4th), 97% chance of advancing
Croatia: 1821 rating (11th), 90% chance of advancing
Panama: 1699 rating (30th), 46% chance of advancing
Ghana: 1478 rating (48th), 28% chance of advancing
Since the end of Euro 2024, England have:
-moved the ball upfield slower than anyone in the World Cup field
-produced the second-fewest possessions per game
-allowed the joint-fewest goals
-allowed the second-fewest shots
-scored the second-most goals from set pieces
Sound familiar?
This team is going to make a lot of people very angry, and they’re going to be so hard to beat. They play like the team that just won the Premier League and lost the Champions League final on penalties — but Harry Kane is their starting striker.
England 1, Croatia 1
Ghana 1, Panama 2
England 3, Ghana 0
Panama 1, Croatia 2
Panama 0, England 2
Croatia 2, Ghana 0
1. England: 7 points, plus-5 goal differential
2. Croatia: 7 points, plus-3 goal differential
3. Panama: 3 points, minus-2 goal differential
4. Ghana: 0 points, minus-6 goal differential
This new World Cup format is terrible for a number of reasons.
For starters, we won’t actually know who is qualified until every group stage game is played. On top of that, there are 495 different permutations for the round of 32 because FIFA doesn’t want teams from the same group playing each other in the round of 32.
So, the specific groups from which the eight-best third-place teams will determine who plays which first-place team in the round of 32. And then, since there are 12 first-place teams and only eight third-place teams, some first-place teams will have to play a second-place team and others a third-place team. But that’s not determined by group-stage performance — no it was already determined by a draw.
The winners of groups F, H, C and J (I think!) will all have to play second-place finishers. And then some other second-place finishers will get to play another second-place finisher instead of a first-place team.
So, it’s basically impossible to know what the draw is going to look like at this point, and yet the draw is going to have a bigger impact on this World Cup than any other World Cup. FIFA has done it again!
Anyway, based on my predictions, there won’t end up being a ton of interesting round of 32 games. Norway vs. Ecuador is a battle of two sleeper teams, Japan vs. Brazil is a matchup of two top-10 teams in the DTAI rating, and Argentina vs. Uruguay feels like it could set the record for yellow cards given out in a single game.
Perhaps more interestingly, my prediction has the U.S. winning their group, but they get a much harder round of 32 game (Ivory Coast) than the second-place team, Türkiye, who got matched up with the lowest-rated team (New Zealand) to advance beyond the group stage.
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South Korea 1, Canada 2
Morocco 1, Netherlands 1 (Netherlands win in penalties)
Germany 2, Paraguay 0
Japan 1, Brazil 1 (Japan win in penalties)
Ecuador 1, Norway 2
France 3, Sweden 1
Mexico 1, Scotland 0
England 2, Congo DR 0
USMNT 2, Ivory Coast 1
Belgium 2, Czechia 1
Uzbekistan 0, Croatia 1
Spain 3, Austria 1
Türkiye 2, New Zealand 0
Argentina 1, Uruguay 0
Colombia 1, Senegal 1 (Colombia win in penalties)
Switzerland 0, Iran 1
This is the marquee matchup of the round of 16, and the one battle-of-heavyweights we can sketch out despite the convoluted draw procedure.
Germany have the talent advantage in the midfield, and they’re one of the few “system” teams in this tournament. In other words, they’re a side that has a clear, aggressive attacking approach that isn’t just built around set pieces, counterattacking or grinding their opponent into dust. Julian Nagelsmann is one of the best coaches in the world, and I think we forget that Germany were within minutes of knocking out Spain in the Euros.
A Germany win here — or, frankly, a Germany World Cup win — wouldn’t shock me, but they landed pretty much the worst draw possible.
Predicted result: France 2, Germany 1
This would be a really fun stylistic matchup. It would, essentially, be a Bundesliga match, with both teams trying to press each other and midfield control likely being nonexistent. Would Canada still have homefield advantage in Houston?
Predicted result: Canada 1, Japan 0
Since the start of 2024, Norway have scored 52 goals across 14 competitive matches, and they’ve only conceded 12. That plus-40 goal differential is the best of anyone in the field.
Predicted result: Norway 1, Netherlands 1 (Norway win in penalties)
These teams have the fourth- and sixth-best odds of reaching the final eight. The problem for Mexico here is that their most likely outcome lines them up with England in the round of 16 — even if the combined probability of all the easier potential outcomes is way higher. This game would be at the Azteca in Mexico City, but England probably have enough to grind it out.
Predicted result: England 1, Mexico 0
One of these teams is a lot better than the other team.
Predicted result: Spain 3, Croatia 1
The number of Belgium players who were on the roster when these teams met in 2014: four.
The number of USMNT players who were on the roster when these teams met in 2014: zero.
That, plus some nice homefield advantage out in Seattle, is enough for the USMNT to make its first quarterfinals appearance in 24 years.
Predicted result: USMNT 2, Belgium 1
I don’t love that Argentina’s team is old and that they’re using nearly the exact same core from 2022. Messi gets hurt all the time now — what happens if he gets hurt this summer?
The innovator’s dilemma seems like it should strike again. But even though we don’t like to admit it, luck of the draw plays as big of a role in deciding the World Cup winner as does anything else.
Predicted result: Argentina 1, Türkiye 0
In a game that has absolutely no political undertones — nope, none at all — Colombia should win quite easily.
Predicted result: Colombia 2, Iran 0
There’s, unfortunately, not much to analyze here. France just have way too much talent for Jesse Marsch & Co. to handle.
Predicted result: France 2, Canada 0
This would be the best team the U.S. has played in a World Cup since 1994. Yes, they played eventual champions Germany in 2014, but that game ended up not even being a must-win for the Germans, who comfortably finished atop the group. It didn’t feel like a fully competitive game.
This game would — much like when the Americans matched up with Brazil in the round of 16 in 1994. Spain are just too organized and too talented.
Predicted result: Spain 2, USMNT 0
Based on the DTAI odds, there’s about an 80% chance that at least one team from outside their top 10 makes the semifinals. Of course, none of those teams are particularly likely to make it themselves, but the combined probability of the 38 teams outside the top 10 is overwhelming.
If this doesn’t make sense, well, just think about the winner. No one has a better than 24% chance of winning the tournament, but one of those teams still has to win the tournament.
And so, the team with Haaland and Ødegaard and the impeccable recent track record and a bunch of huge dudes and a draw that avoids France and Spain becomes our outside-the-top-10 team to reach the semifinals.
Predicted result: Norway 1, England 0
The vulnerable Argentineans … draw another team that I don’t think is particularly likely to knock them off. All my criticisms of Argentina — that they haven’t refreshed the team at all, that they’re reliant on one star and a bunch of 30-somethings — all apply directly to Colombia, who have the same problem but with less talent.
Predicted result: Argentina 1, Colombia 0
The last time these teams met was in the semifinals of the UEFA Nations League last summer. Spain won 5-4. Their previous meeting: the semifinals of Euro 2024 that Spain won 2-1. In other words, this could be one of the all-time great World Cup matchups.
At the same time, Spain was winning that Nations League semifinal 4-0 and then 5-1 before France scored a flurry of late goals to make the scoreline look more respectable.
Both teams enter the tournament with superstars carrying injuries. Yamal missed the last month of the season for Barcelona with a hamstring injury, while Saliba might miss the World Cup with a back injury. That’s the best right winger and the best center back in the world.
Based on the draw, though, it doesn’t really seem like Spain are going to face a significant challenge until the semifinals, so Yamal might be able to ramp himself up without Spain paying the price. France have as much depth as anyone at center back, but Saliba has a level-headed calm that no one else on the roster offers.
Predicted result: Spain 3, France 3 (Spain win in penalties)
This feels a lot like the France-Morocco from the semifinals in 2022: the defending World Cup champ vs. the sleeper that upset a number of favorites along the way.
Norway have more high-end talent than that Morocco team, and they fit the exact blueprint of the team that could knock off this creaky Argentina group — big, strong, fast and straightforward. But for as much as I want to, I can’t look at that 3% number and allow myself to do it.
Predicted result: Argentina 2, Norway 1
On form alone, these are the two best teams in the world — by a sizable margin.
Argentina have won two Copa Americas on either side of the previous World Cup and dominated the CONMEBOL qualifying stretch. Spain, meanwhile, are the defending European champions, lost the Nations League final on penalties and conceded just two goals during an undefeated World Cup qualifying run.
Not only that, the draw in this iteration of the tournament set up nicely for both. And I do think most of the most-likely permutations set up nicely for both. Even if we followed the DTAI projections exactly, neither team would match up with a top-eight side until the semifinals.
The Messi-Yamal narrative would be impossible to avoid. There is, after all, literally a photograph of Messi holding a newborn Yamal in his arms. And I do think it would be fitting. Kylian Mbappé was the first potential heir to Messi’s greatest-of-all-time throne; Messi beat him in the 2022 final. Then there was Haaland, who in this prediction, would also be vanquished by Argentina in the 2026 semifinals.
But in reality, Yamal is more like Messi than either of them. He plays more like him, he plays for the same team as him, and the sheer breadth of his accomplishments at such an early age make him more likely to one day match Messi’s exploits than anyone else. If he’s going to do that, the 2026 World Cup final would be a great place to start.
Predicted winner: Spain 2, Argentina 1
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