WWC26 Superforecaster
Last 17/06 04:35 ET

Since last forecast KO times ET

16/06 15:00FRA3-1SEN
16/06 18:00IRA1-4NOR
16/06 21:00ARG3-0ALG
17/06 00:00AUS3-1JOR
17/06 13:00POR1-1CON
17/06 16:00ENG3-2CRO73'

Estimated WC winner shift

1.FRA11.513.5%+2.0ppt
2.SPA15.516.0%+0.5ppt
3.ENG9.910.2%+0.3ppt
Forecasts

Forecast @ 13 June 10:56 ET (Groups)

52m 44s runtime

Spain are the tournament favourites with Rodri confirmed fit and Yamal back from injury. France are the closest challengers, backed by a sustained market premium well above the model. England and Portugal are genuine semi-final contenders, with Argentina the leading South American threat. Netherlands and Japan open shorthanded after confirmed key injuries.

% win WC
  1. Spain0.0%
  2. France0.0%
  3. Portugal0.0%
  4. England0.0%
  5. Argentina0.0%
  6. Brazil0.0%
  7. Germany0.0%
  8. Netherlands0.0%

Where we differ from the market

  • Our forecast 1.1%Market 1.6%-0.5pp below

    Wataru Endo and Kaoru Mitoma are both out of the squad injured, weakening Japan's midfield and attack. The losses lower their chances a little, though there is enough cover to keep the fall small.

  • Our forecast 13.8%Market 16.5%-2.7pp below

    Our ratings put France near 8% on recent results, but the market has backed them at 16% all month, reading in a big-tournament pedigree the ratings can't measure. We trust the market more here and land at 14%, between the two.

  • Our forecast 9.5%Market 10.7%-1.2pp below

    Our ratings have England at 7% on recent results, the market higher at 11%, reading in the strength and depth of the squad. We trust the market more and land at 10%, just behind the top group.

Different plausible worlds

Each world is a distinct posterior over team strengths; the forecast is their weight-averaged mixture.

  • 25%Fitted simulation
  • 75%Using market odds

Distribution of winning the World Cup by team

Spain are the favourites, with Rodri fit and Yamal back from injury.

16.2% is the weighted average of Spain’s chance of winning the World Cup across 200 simulated draws.

Rodri is back at full fitness and Yamal has recovered from injury, so nothing this week weakens Spain. Our ratings put them at 18% and the market at 16%, both clear of the field, and we land at 16%.

Using market oddsDe-vigged bookmaker consensus prices for the seven leading contenders blended in; captures market information but cannot separate signal from bookmaker margin.
75%
Fitted simulationUnperturbed Poisson model fit to historical international results with confirmed tournament results in the overlay; sees long-run objective strength but not market information.
25%

Internal forecast workings

  1. 1Step 1

    Six confirmed news items priced via perturbation_impact (noise floor 0.59pp throughout). Four are material signal; two are moot or sub-floor. Seven model-vs-market base disagreements exceed noise floor, with France (+7.7pp) and England (+3.9pp) the largest structural gaps; Colombia and Belgium carry…

    • NOISE FLOOR: 0.59pp (paired-seed, all perturbation_impact calls). All deltas below are from executed simulations.
    • NETHERLANDS (Simons + Schouten ACL, ): strength delta -0.10 -> title delta -2.47pp (4.2x floor). Squad_players confirms both players already excluded from registered squad; model may partially embed via squad-value covariate (~14% of hypothetical full squad value gone). This is an UPPER BOUN…
    • JAPAN (Endo + Mitoma both out, /0006): strength delta -0.10 -> title delta -0.77pp (1.3x floor; marginal signal). Squad_players confirms both absent from registered squad. Endo (DM/captain) + Mitoma (key winger) represent ~15.6% of hypothetical full squad value. Japan Polymarket (2.08%) has…
    • GERMANY (Neuer confirmed fit, /0012/0013): strength delta +0.04 -> title delta +1.89pp (3.2x floor). Resolves slight calf-doubt scenario. Paradoxically widens model-vs-market gap since market already had Germany discounted (-0.053 in market base). Post-news model Germany ~8.3% vs market 5.22…
    • ARGENTINA (Martinez fit, /0009): strength delta +0.02 -> title delta +0.90pp (1.5x floor). Fractured finger resolved; Martinez completed full training with both gloves 2026-06-12. Small positive confirmation.

  2. 2Step 2

    Clean 4-world mixture rebuilt and registered (outputs/mixture.json, 20k sims per world, seed=42, noise floor 0.395pp). Spain leads at 17.11%, France 14.40%, England 10.23%. World weights: this scenario 0.15, this scenario 0.55, model_evidence 0.10, market_evidence 0.20 (25% model / 75% market, near the 0…

    • WORLD 1 - this scenario (weight 0.15): Unperturbed champion simulation. Spain 18.32%, Argentina 10.56%, Brazil 8.66%, Portugal 8.73%, France 8.04%, England 7.13%.
    • WORLD 2 - this scenario (weight 0.55): 8-team market inversion via wq.implied_delta -- France +0.150, England +0.0895, Portugal +0.0311, Spain -0.035, Argentina -0.0548, Germany -0.0428, Belgium -0.1112, Colombia -0.1718. All gaps >0.59pp floor. Colombia and Belgium inversions added vs fal…
    • WORLD 3 - model_evidence (weight 0.10): Evidence only on model base. NED Simons+Schouten ACL (): delta mean=-0.07, sd=0.03 (reduced from 's -0.10; confirms squads already registered without them, upper bound -2.47pp). JPN Endo+Mitoma (/0006): delta mean=-0.06, sd…
    • WORLD 4 - market_evidence (weight 0.20): Market inversions plus all four evidence perturbations. NED 3.08%, GER 6.32%, ARG 8.45%.
    • EXCLUDED: Brazil Neymar opener () -- priced as MatchRate perturbation and found below 0.59pp floor; no own world. Mexico Ochoa () -- moot, match already played (Mexico 2-0 South Africa).
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