We’ve reached the quarter-finals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
In the Round of 16, five of the seven favourites – USA v Belgium was pretty much 50/50 with the bookmakers! – progressed. Brazil and Colombia were the two exceptions that bowed out.
In this article, we’ll look at who the bookies (in this case, bet365) fancy to progress to the semi-finals and the final.
We’ve done this for two reasons:
- The new Qualification Booster gives you +2 points for every player that makes it through to the next round. Managers playing this chip, or weighing up when to activate it, will want to target players with a good chance of progressing.
- There are limited transfers in each round – and you’ll ideally want to avoid a situation where you have lots of eliminated players to ship out in the subsequent round.
| TOURNAMENT STAGE | ALLOCATION |
|---|---|
| Before the Quarter-finals | 4 free transfers |
| Before the Semi-finals | 5 free transfers |
| Before the Final | 6 free transfers |
It should be said that those nations that lose in the last four will still play in the ‘final’ round (aka the third-place play-off). However, there’s a decent chance that the managers of those defeated semi-finalists rotate for what is, essentially, a meaningless bronze-medal match.
BOOKIES’ ODDS FOR EACH ROUND
We’ve divided the odds below into two tables, reflecting the separate halves of the draw.
Teams highlighted in bold are the bookies’ favourites to make it through to the next round.
FIRST HALF
| Team | To reach the semi-finals | To reach the final |
|---|---|---|
| France | 76.2% | 48.6% |
| Morocco | 23.8% | 8.4% |
| Spain | 72.9% | 35.3% |
| Belgium | 27.1% | 7.7% |
SECOND HALF
| Team | To reach the semi-finals | To reach the final |
|---|---|---|
| Norway | 34.5% | 16.4% |
| England | 65.5% | 34.6% |
| Argentina | 71.8% | 40.0% |
| Switzerland | 28.2% | 9.0% |
France, Spain, Argentina and England, in that order, are the favourites in their respective quarter-final matches.
Indeed, those have been the bookmakers’ favourites to make the semi-finals for some time.
While there are ‘no easy games’ at this stage, as the old cliche goes, to have three quarter-finalists boasting a 70%+ chance of progression is good for those who still have their Qualification Booster in tact. We only just had that in the Round of 16, despite there being twice as many matches.
France and Argentina subsequently have the highest percentage chance of reaching the final, but the margins look tighter.
