Although this ratio was not overreached due to the number of teams in the 2026 World Cup increased to 48, Spain was the only team with over 50% of the ability to participate in the tether, reaching 52,1%.
The team under Coach Luis de la Fuente was rated 39% of the chance to enter the semifinals and 25.6% to participate in the final. At the table round, Spain fell into the H-boards with Bristol, Saudi Arab and Cape Verde. In Opta's simulations, their ability to top the board reached 75.3%.
Lamine Yamal and his teammates rejoiced after Spain won the UK at the Euro 2024 final on Olympiastadion, Berlin, Germany July 14, 2024. Image: Reuters
The power of Spain comes from the generation of talented players at the ninth degree. Lamine Yamal continued to be considered the most notable star after the outbreak of the Euro 220,000 Last season, Barca's winger scored 24 goals and had 17 architects on every arena.
In addition, the return of quarterback Rodri after the injury, the same stable style of Ferran Torres or Mikel Oyarzabal to help Spain own the bronze team was on all three routes.
The second on the championship candidate list is France with a capacity of 13%. The team that previously entered the last two World Cup finals continued to be highly rated due to the seasoning of experienced players and the formation depth. He ranked third with 11.2%, while Argentina had a 10.4% chance of successfully defending the throne. In addition to the above four names, no team was rated by Opta to be champions over 10%.
Lionel Messi and his team raised the championship Cup after the 2022 World Cup Final. Image: Reuters
Portugal ranked 5th on the championship nominee list (7%), with high expectations for Cristio Ronaldo - neutral preparations to enter the 6th World Cup in career.
Ronaldo released the 2003 Portuguese team holding the 143 goal record over 226 games. He has helped the first three major titles team in history, consisting of Euro 2016 and the Nations League 2019, 2025, but has never won the World Cup. In it, your best record and teammates were the fourth place in 2006.
Coach Mauricio Pochettino in the Associatement of America and Mexico at Akron Field, Guadalajara, Mexico January 15, 2010. Image: Reuters
With the three co-owners, Opta assesses prospects at a positive level but is not enough to compete for the championship. The U.S. is considered the most likely team to advance in this group. The team under Coach Mauricio Pochettino was expected to have 32,8% of the ability to top the D and 1.2% of the championship.
Mexico has a 47,8% chance of winning the top of the A and more than 50% of the possibility of getting into the 1/8 round, but the probability of the championship is only 1%. In the meantime, Canada is rated with 460,000% chance of crossing the board.
One of the notable points from the predictive model is Croatian decline. The 2018 World Cup and about the three 2022 World Cups were only ranked 15th on the possibility of championship with 1.6%, mainly due to the many pillars that had crossed the summit, like Luka Modric, Mateo Kovac or Ivan Perisic.
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The 2026 World Cup also marked for the first time Cape Verde, Curacao, Uzbekistan and Jordan. Of these, Kuwait and Jordan were rated with a higher chance of crossing the board, turning to 41,4% and 40,8%. Curacao is the only team that has not ever been championed in the entire 10,000 simulations of Opta. Haiti, on the other hand, suddenly crowned once among the scripts created by the system.
Even so, Opta claimed that the range of teams in the World Cup was increasingly narrowed. Just a few unexpected results in the knock-out ring can also change the entire league. With the new form and the number of record-winning teams, the 2026 Cup is expected to be the most unpredictable and fascinating World Cup in history.
Opta's predictive model was built to estimate the chances that the teams achieved specific results in the tournament, from passing the board to the chance of the championship.
To do this, the system first calculates the probability of each match result—winning or losing—based on data from the betting market and the ranking of the Opta Power Rankings. These indicators are formed from the historical record as well as the recent performance of the teams.
Then, the relative power ratings model between the opponents and conducts simulations of the entire tournament thousands of times. In the case of the 2026 World Cup, Opta made up 10,000 simulations.
Through the analysis of the results of each script, the super computer determined the frequency of each team approaching different rounds or winning the championship. These appearance rates were converted into probability and became the basis for the previous tournament forecasts.
Opta emphasizes that this is not a definitive prediction of the final result, but a probability assessment based on data and statistical models. So the surprises are still perfectly possible in a high-voluntary, highly variable tournament like the World Cup.