2026 World Cup: Spain vs. Argentina prediction
Who will win the 2026 World Cup? Odds for all 48 teams and 104 matches, powered by 100,000 simulations from PELE, Silver Bulletin's new soccer model.
⚽ The latest World Cup predictions: Updated July 16, 2026
Heartbreak again for England, as Argentina will face Spain in the World Cup Final.
At the start of this exceptional World Cup, our model had Argentina and Spain as co-favorites, with France and England as the 3rd- and 4th-most likely teams to take home the trophy. I understand the skepticism about Argentina. You could argue that all three of their KO-round wins have been dodgy in some fashion.
I thought they played an excellent game today, by contrast, though I’m not quite sure whether their conservative play in the first half served any greater purpose. But their 2-1 comeback win over England, with goals in the 85th and 92nd minutes, both assisted by Lionel Messi, was still incredibly heartbreaking for the Three Lions. We’ve likened England to the New York Knicks, and this is a bit like if the Knicks had lost the NBA Finals 4-2 after winning the first two games in San Antonio.
Although I was rooting for Argentina for PELE purposes, I was pleased that Anthony Gordon scored such a spectacular goal to break the nil-nil deadlock. It had seemed like the sort of game that was bound to end in a penalty or after a player was sent off. Instead, we had a terrific finish.
It’s worth keeping in mind that England’s path to the semifinals wasn’t exactly smooth, either. Their win against Mexico in the R16 at Estadio Azteca was well-earned, but it came amid other chaos. They benefited from a couple of VAR decisions in the quarter against Norway. They even conceded the first goal to DR Congo and needed a comeback to advance in the R32.
In the final 20-30 minutes today, it almost seemed as though England was a man down, spiritually replicating their Mexico effort when they actually were a man down. But this time, Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez tallied incredibly skilled goals.
In contrast to Argentina — and England, really — Spain has had a very consistent tournament, having outscored their opponents 13-1 after beating France 2-0 yesterday, with the result never in much jeopardy.
Indeed, Spain is on a long unbeaten streak; their last loss in international play came on 3/22/24 in a friendly against Colombia. Their last loss in a competitive game was even earlier, in March 2023, in a Euro qualifier against Scotland. Sure, they drew 0-0 with Cape Verde in their opening group-stage match, but a keeper like Vozinha is going to produce an outcome like that every now and then. Spain was still by far the better team according to expected goals and other stats.
Even if they don’t have a truly elite attacking talent — at least not given how Yamal has played in this tournament — Spain is just so deep and so good in midfield. Sorry for the simplistic analysis. They not only win all the 50/50 balls but also control possession in many 30/70 situations. France didn’t seem prepared.
France had an excellent World Cup. We’ll make zero apologies for them quickly joining the “lead lap” in the model after their group-stage performance, and betting markets liked France even more than PELE did. But they hadn’t played anyone nearly this good. Norway rested its starters in the group stage. Morocco was arguably playing for penalties. France was dubious from the start yesterday, with a yellow card in the 9th minute before conceding a penalty in the 22’ on a clear if brain-dead foul. Then perhaps their most important defender, William Saliba, struggling through injury, was substituted in the 30th minute.
The model had the match as a toss-up, slightly leaning France, but with the benefit of hindsight, I think you can say that Spain was going to win it most of the time.
Spain will face Argentina in New Jersey on Sunday in what should be one of the most anticipated World Cup finals ever, with Spain hoping to add a second trophy and Argentina looking to become the first back-to-back winner since Brazil in 1958-1962.
We’ll probably have some sort of preview of the Final for you before Sunday and will also monitor the wires for any injury or player availability information. William Saliba of France is out for several months and will not play in the 3rd-place game. There aren’t any major new injuries affecting Argentina or Spain.
We’ve also performed an audit on our historical match results and identified a few missing games and a few duplicate games, though this has a very minor effect on the overall prediction.
You can find our projection for the Final, as well as the 3rd-place game between France and England, below. For our methodology, see here.
See also: PELE International Football Rankings.
Jump to a section
Part I — Team ratings — PELE ratings, adjusted for the World Cup
Part II — Knockout projections 🔒 — odds at each stage, likely opponents, the bracket
Part III — Match projections 🔒 — win probabilities, scorelines, and the knockout score matrix
Part IV — Track record & history 🔒 — historical performance, upsets, milestones
So, who’s gonna win the World Cup? While our model doesn’t deviate too much from the conventional wisdom, we don’t have teams in quite the same order. Each time we run the model, we play out 100,000 simulated World Cups, accounting for the difficulty of each team’s draw, meticulously calculating tiebreakers, and even the possibility of a dark-horse contender getting hot and unexpectedly being in top form.1 Let’s look at the PELE ratings and some specific adjustments that we’ve made to them for the World Cup.
Part I. Team and group ratings ⚽
Our baseline PELE ratings are adjusted in several ways for the tournament. First, we account for differences between PELE’s algorithmically calculated rosters and the actual, announced World Cup rosters. Thus, we correct for the impact of injuries or otherwise unexpected player absences.2
Second, we update each team’s rating based on the quality of their performance relative to PELE’s expectations for each match. And third, we adjust for home-field advantage on a match-by-match basis.3 The factor is customized for each team: as it happens, the U.S., Canada and especially Mexico4 have above-average home-field advantages.
Ratings and forecasts will be updated at the end of each match day5. Paid subscribers will also get access to our full suite of PELE ratings and our forthcoming midterm election forecasts.
Part II. Knockout stage projections ⚽
Here is each team’s probability of winning the World Cup, and advancing to each stage of the knockout round, using an old-school, FiveThirtyEight heatmap format.