Opta’s model sees Spain ahead of France and England: Tuchel’s team has the role of a major, but not the biggest, favorite
England is entering its final preparations for the 2026 World Cup as one of the most talked-about national teams, but according to the latest publicly available projection by Opta Analyst, it is not the leading candidate for the title. Opta’s probability table for the tournament in Canada, Mexico and the United States places Spain in first position, giving it a 16.23 percent chance of winning the trophy. France is second with 12.84 percent, while England is third with 10.92 percent, ahead of Argentina, Portugal, Brazil and Germany. Such a ranking does not mean that Thomas Tuchel’s team is far from the top, but rather that the model currently estimates that England, in order to win its first world title since 1966, would have to overtake at least two national teams that are statistically considered more convincing candidates.
The assessment is especially interesting because England has a generation featuring players such as Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham, and it arrives at the tournament after years in which it was regularly close to the final stages of major competitions. According to an England Football announcement, Tuchel has named 26 players for the World Cup, and the team is led by captain Kane, for whom this will be a third appearance at World Cups. Still, based on the strength of the national teams, the draw and the likely paths through the competition, Opta’s model does not treat England as the first option for the title. In the context of a tournament with 48 national teams, an additional knockout round and eight matches for the teams that reach the final, even a small difference in estimates can carry great weight.
Spain has the best starting position
According to Opta Analyst, Spain is currently the national team with the highest probability of winning the 2026 World Cup. The model gives it a 98.34 percent chance of reaching the knockout stage, 51.60 percent of reaching the quarter-finals, 38.70 percent of reaching the semi-finals and 25.33 percent of reaching the final. These numbers explain why Spain is ahead of the other favorites in the projection: what is being evaluated is not only the overall quality of the team, but also the likelihood that it will go far enough through the specific tournament schedule to even compete for the trophy. In the final stage of the competition, such differences often become decisive, because even the best squads have to get through a series of matches in which one bad day can erase months of preparation.
Spain does not enter that assessment solely on the basis of reputation. In the official documentation for the Euro 2024 final, UEFA records Spain’s 2:1 victory against England, with which Luis de la Fuente’s team confirmed its status as one of the most successful European national teams of the recent period. UEFA then stated in its report on the 2025 Nations League semi-final that Spain beat France 5:4 in Stuttgart, in a match in which Lamine Yamal scored twice and was highlighted as player of the match. Such results provide wider context for Opta’s assessment: in recent major matches, Spain has already beaten direct competitors that the model now places immediately behind it.
France remains ahead of England despite a narrower gap
According to Opta’s projection, France is the second favorite of the tournament with a 12.84 percent chance of the title, which is lower than Spain’s 16.23 percent but still noticeably higher than England’s 10.92 percent. The model gives the French national team a 95.11 percent chance of reaching the knockout stage and a 20.94 percent chance of reaching the final. The difference between France and England is not huge, but it is clear enough to show that Les Bleus are still considered a more reliable candidate for the very end of the tournament. In practice, that means England, even if it convincingly comes through the group, could find itself in a field where the margin between the favorites is very small.
France’s status in the projections rests on continuity of results and squad depth, but also on the fact that in recent years the national team has remained a regular participant in the final stages of major competitions. Opta’s model does not measure only the impression created by individual stars, but combines data on team strength and a possible tournament path. That is why the 5:4 defeat by Spain in the Nations League, which UEFA described as the highest-scoring match in the history of that competition, is not necessarily enough to drop France below England. On the contrary, such a match also confirms how small the differences are among the leading European national teams.
England is the third favorite, but the path to the title is not simple
England is third in Opta’s table with a 10.92 percent chance of winning the title, 95.91 percent of reaching the knockout stage and 18.52 percent of reaching the final. These percentages confirm that England is considered one of the most serious candidates at the tournament, but also that its path toward the trophy is statistically more demanding than Spain’s and France’s. In the public sphere, England’s ambitions are often measured through the historical burden of 1966, but the model looks more coolly at the structure of the tournament. Its message is not that England does not have a team for the title, but that there are currently national teams given a somewhat better starting position.
According to England Football’s announcement of the World Cup squad, Tuchel’s team gathered in early June at a training camp in Florida, and will then continue to its permanent tournament base in Kansas City. The same source states that England will play warm-up matches against New Zealand and Costa Rica before the start of the competition, followed by Group L. England opens the tournament against Croatia in Dallas on June 17, continues against Ghana in Boston on June 23 and finishes the group stage against Panama in New York New Jersey on June 27. On paper, such a schedule looks manageable, but the new format means that to win the trophy it is no longer enough to get through six or seven matches as in earlier editions.
Tuchel’s role and the pressure after the Southgate era
Thomas Tuchel took over England on January 1, 2025, after the FA announced his appointment as head coach of the senior men’s national team in October 2024. According to the Football Association, Tuchel signed an 18-month contract, and Anthony Barry joined him on the coaching staff. The FA stated at the time that the aim of the appointment was to give England the best possible chance of winning a major tournament, with particular emphasis on the 2026 World Cup. In the meantime, according to his England Football profile, Tuchel extended his stay until the European Championship in 2028, showing that the association does not view the project only as a short-term adventure.
His task, however, was immediately defined by great expectations. Under Gareth Southgate, England reached the finals of Euro 2020 and 2024, and in 2024 in Berlin it lost precisely to Spain. Tuchel is therefore not starting from scratch, but is taking over a team that has already learned how to play in final stages, but has not yet found a way to turn them into a title. Opta’s assessment of third place among the favorites can be read both as confirmation of quality and as a warning: the potential exists, but the competition is strong enough that England’s role as a favorite must be viewed with moderation.
The new format increases the number of traps
For the 2026 World Cup, FIFA has introduced a format with 48 national teams, 12 groups of four teams and a total of 104 matches. According to FIFA’s official explanation, the two best national teams from each group and the eight best third-placed teams advance to the knockout stage, after which the round of 32 follows. The tournament runs from June 11 to July 19, 2026, and the final is scheduled for New York New Jersey Stadium in East Rutherford. In practice, this means that the winner will have to withstand a longer tournament than was the case in the format with 32 national teams.
For favorites such as Spain, France and England, the expansion of the tournament brings two different consequences. On the one hand, the larger number of third-placed national teams in the knockout stage reduces the risk of disaster in the group, because a weaker start to the tournament does not have to mean immediate elimination. On the other hand, the additional knockout round increases the number of matches in which a favorite can slip up against an organized opponent. For that reason, Opta’s probabilities should not be read as a final verdict, but as a current snapshot of risks and advantages in a tournament system that is more complex than ever.
Argentina, Portugal and Brazil are waiting from the background
Behind the first three national teams, Opta’s model places Argentina, Portugal and Brazil. Argentina, the current world champion, has a 10.12 percent chance of defending the title according to that table, which is very close to England’s percentage. Portugal is at 7.18 percent and Brazil at 6.35 percent, showing that the classic football powers cannot be written off even when they are not at the very top of the initial projections. Such a ranking further emphasizes how compressed the top of the order is: the difference between England and Argentina is less than one percentage point, while the larger jump comes only toward France and Spain.
That is also important for interpreting England’s status. Being the third favorite at a World Cup with 48 national teams is, in sporting terms, an exceptionally high position, but it is not the same as having a dominant role. England enters the tournament as a team with the quality to reach the final stages, but the projection shows that its real path to the trophy will probably have to be decided through direct meetings with national teams of similar or greater strength. That is precisely why Tuchel’s work will be judged not only by progression from the group, but by the ability to find solutions in the knockout stage against teams with equally high ambitions.
What Opta’s assessment actually says
Opta’s probabilities are useful because they offer a structured view of the tournament, but they do not remove the uncertainty that makes the World Cup special. A percentage of 16.23 for Spain means that it is the most frequent winner in the model, but at the same time it means that in the vast majority of possible scenarios the trophy goes to someone else. England’s 10.92 percent is not a small number, but confirmation that it is a national team from the very narrow circle of candidates. The difference is that public expectations often seek a simple answer to the question of who the favorite is, while statistical models show a range of possible outcomes.
For England, the most important conclusion is therefore twofold. On the one hand, the model confirms that Tuchel’s team is strong enough to be spoken of as a title candidate, with high chances of progressing from the group and a realistic chance of reaching the final. On the other hand, Spain and France currently have a better statistical position, while Argentina, Portugal and Brazil are close enough to change the picture already after the first week of the tournament. In that framework, England’s quest to end the wait since 1966 remains one of the central stories of the 2026 World Cup, but not a story with a pre-written ending.
Sources:
- Opta Analyst – publicly available probability table for the 2026 World Cup, including the chances of Spain, France, England and the other favorites (link)
- FIFA – explanation of the 2026 World Cup format with 48 national teams, 12 groups and 104 matches (link)
- FIFA – official overview of groups, qualification criteria and rules for reaching the knockout stage (link)
- FIFA – official match schedule for the 2026 World Cup and key tournament dates (link)
- England Football – announcement of England’s squad for the 2026 World Cup, the preparation schedule and Group L matches (link)
- England Football – Thomas Tuchel profile with information on his appointment, contract and coaching staff (link)
- UEFA – official page of the Euro 2024 final between Spain and England (link)
- UEFA – report on the 2025 Nations League semi-final in which Spain beat France 5:4 (link)