More than six months before the start of World Cup 2026, and hours before the FIFA World Cup draw, the Opta analysts have made a list of most likely nations to win World Cup. This comes from 10,000 pre-draw simulations, analysing the most likely scenarios of every possible combination... and Spain would be victorious in 17% of the cases.
Spain won World Cup only once in 2010, but recently returned to the top of the FIFA rankings thanks to their victory at the European Championships. They sit firmly at the top of the list of favourites for World Cup draw... while Argentina, defending champions, falls to the fourth place, significantly lower than France and England.
Here's the list of World Cup 2026 favourites according to Opta:
Spain: 17.0%
France: 14.1%
England: 11.8%
Argentina: 8.7%
Germany: 7.1%
Portugal: 6.6%
Brazil: 5.6%
Netherlands: 5.2%
Norway: 2.3%
Colombia: 2.0%
Belgium: 1.9%
Uruguay: 1.7%
Mexico: 1.3%
Croatia: 1.1/%
Morocco: 1.1%
Ecuador: 1.0%
Below 0.2%, we find many nations including Scotland, Iran, Saudi Arabia... and three nations are given 0% chances: Jordan, Curaçao, and Haiti. Of course, the list is not complete as there are still several nations that could qualify through the play-offs in March... including Italy.
Who do you think will win World Cup 2026?
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