Thomas Tuchel’s England are joint-third favourites for 2026 World Cup
The World Cup is looming on the horizon for 2026 and the early favourites are Spain, though England are somehow not far behind them.
10) Uruguay
Unconvincing since finishing third at Copa America, not helped by the retiring Luis Suarez aiming barbs at coach Marcelo Bielsa and his intense methods. “As for how the situation affected me, I don’t ignore what happened, and I know that my authority was affected in some way,” said Bielsa.
Such is the nature of CONMEBOL World Cup qualification that even with a patchy record Uruguay are still all but certain to make it to USA, Mexico and Canada next summer, and they edge out the first two of those and Belgium to sneak into the top 10..
9) Italy
This is still an Italy side lacking a bit of star quality, as evidenced by their limp exit to Switzerland. It’s hard to make a compelling case for Italy winning the World Cup beyond ‘well, it’s Italy’. They have at least acquired a backbone, with Luciano Spalletti saying: “The team is working hard, sweating for the shirt, sacrificing themselves.”
First job is making sure they actually qualify this time after the mortifying failures of 2022 and 2018. And then to make it out of the group stage if they do after the mortifying failures of 2014 and 2010. It remains dizzyingly absurd yet somehow true that the last World Cup knockout game Italy played was the 2006 final.
8) Netherlands
Probably high up this list by virtue of reaching the Euros semi-finals but playing Joshua Zirkzee or Bryan Brobbey up front hardly screams ‘options’, while they have been defensively very questionable. Virgil van Dijk – sent off in the Nations League in October 2024 – will be almost 35 when the tournament kicks off.
7) Portugal
Ronaldo will be a ludicrous 41 when the World Cup rolls around, but you absolutely know he will be there. They really should have plummeted down this list as soon as they drew 0-0 to Scotland.
6) Germany
“We’ve got the ambition to keep going. There’s a supercharged atmosphere in the dressing room – they want to win,” said Julian Nagelsmann after a 1-0 mauling of the Netherlands despite a whole host of first-choice players being injured. Nagelsmann described the first half as the best that Germany had played all year, and they’ve since knocked Italy out to reach the semi-finals. Something special may be brewing for a team that has been off-brand in major tournaments for far too long now.
5) Argentina
They’re the World Cup holders, the Copa America holders and are so far clear at the top of South American qualifying that they’ve already booked their place for next summer, so why are they considered less likely than England to win the 2026 World Cup? Defeat to Paraguay fuelled doubts that an ageing squad will struggle to go again in 2026.
3=) England
They reached the Euro 2024 final though it’s still unclear how. Thomas Tuchel takes over the worst of European finalists and the worst right-wing press. There has been a pretty unedifying Nations League defeat to Greece – with redemption coming in Athens – but England start every major tournament as one of the favourites, despite this particular one marking 60 years of hurt and thus the alarming fact that we are now as far away from the release of Three Lions as Three Lions was from 1966.
3=) Brazil
Underwhelming at Copa America, unconvincing in World Cup qualifying and it will be 24 years since they have even reached a World Cup final by the time the tournament comes around. And yet it’s Brazil, people bloody love them, and they do have a plethora of young attacking players.
2) France
France have reached the last two World Cup finals so are always going to be short odds to reach another, especially with the continuity of Didier Deschamps. And they are in excellent form having topped their Nations League group and toppled Croatia (just about) in the quarter-finals.
1) Spain
They have just won Euro 2024 and even more importantly are into the semi-finals of the Nations League. They’re really bloody good.