Attempts to predict the outcome of the World Cup have evolved a lot over time. Today, supercomputers compete for space with bookmakers, well-informed fans and even supposed clairvoyants in the task of identifying the future champion.
But even German financial analyst Joachim Klement, who became known for predicting the winners of the last three editions of the World Cup, believes that, among the main teams, much depends on chance.
According to him, factors such as a team’s performance on a given day, a refereeing decision or the luck of a ball going in instead of hitting the post “are completely unpredictable”, he told BBC Sport.
Still, if history is anything to go by, there are some factors that teams dreaming of the title should perhaps take into consideration – and some of them are quite surprising.
A select group of champions
Of the 84 teams that have competed in the biggest competition in world football, only eight managed to lift the cup: Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, France, England, Italy and Uruguay.
Only 13 countries have reached a World Cup final – and some of them with great frequency. Germany has played in eight finals, followed by Brazil, with seven, and Argentina and Italy, with six each.
Joining this select group is no easy task. The most recent member of the list is Spain, which won its first title in 2010.
And it’s worth a special mention to the Netherlands, which reached three finals, but never won the competition – although, according to financial analyst Joachim Klement, it is one of the favorites to finally lift the cup in 2026.
Another curious fact is that, in the entire history of the World Cup, only two teams from Africa or Asia have reached the semifinals: South Korea, in 2002, and Morocco, in 2022.
Geography makes a difference
From the first FIFA World Cup, played in Uruguay in 1930, to the most recent edition, held in Qatar in 2022, it has been relatively rare for a team to win the title outside its own continent.
This has only happened six times in 22 editions of the tournament – with Brazil (1958, 1994 and 2002), Spain (2010), Germany (2014) and Argentina (2022).
Considering only the World Cups held in Europe or South America, this “geographical rule” was broken only twice in 19 tournaments.
There are several possible explanations for this phenomenon. Teams can perform better on their own continent because they are more adapted to the climate, suffer less from the strain of travel and have a greater presence of fans. It is no coincidence that six World Cups were won by the host country.
This tendency also tends to appear in the previous stages of the competition.
In the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, for example, seven Latin American teams reached the round of 16, against six European teams – despite Europe, as usual, having qualified more teams for the tournament than any other continent.
Four years later, in Russia, European teams won 10 of the 16 places in the round of 16, while Latin America had just five representatives. Furthermore, the four semifinalists in that edition were European.
The 2026 World Cup, however, promises to usher in a new scenario. It will be the first organized by three countries – the United States, Canada and Mexico – and will feature 48 teams, instead of the traditional 32.
Four teams will also make their debut in the tournament: Curaçao, Cape Verde, Jordan and Uzbekistan. Perhaps the competition will be able to defy historical trends.
Is the FIFA ranking bad luck?
It would be reasonable to expect that the team with the best recent performance would also be one of the favorites for the World Cup title, but this is far from an infallible indicator of success.
Created in 1992, the FIFA ranking is used to define the seedings and avoid early clashes between the main favorites of the championship.
The classification takes into account the results of matches recognized by the entity, including friendlies, and works as an indicator of the performance of the teams, in a similar way to what happens in sports such as tennis.
World champions are almost always among the top 10 or 15 teams in the rankings. However, there is a historical curiosity: no team that occupied first place in the FIFA rankings at the start of a World Cup has ever won the title.
On the eve of the 2026 World Cup, this statistic could represent a bad omen for Argentina, the current leader of the ranking.
The official classification will be updated on June 11, the opening day of the 2026 World Cup, after a series of preparatory friendlies between the teams.
Defending the title is a difficult mission
There are teams with multiple world titles – Brazil, Germany, Italy and Argentina together have won 16 titles. But defending the cup is a difficult task.
In the entire history of the World Cup, only two countries have managed to become champions in consecutive editions: Italy, in 1934 and 1938, and Brazil, in 1958 and 1962.
After the glory, the stumble
In fact, in recent decades, the World Cup has been especially cruel to the teams that enter the championship as defending champions.
Since 2002, four of the six title holders have not even made it past the group stage. The exceptions were Brazil, champion in 2002 and eliminated in the quarterfinals in 2006, and France, winner in 2018 and runner-up in 2022.
Foreign technicians to date have not worked
Hiring foreign coaches is not new at the World Cup, although the number of teams using professionals from other countries has increased over the last three decades.
In 2026, this will be a record: 27 of the 48 participating teams will be led by foreign coaches.
Among them are two world champions. Brazil will be led by the Italian Carlo Ancelotti, while England will be led by the German Thomas Tuchel.
The problem is that, to date, no team coached by a foreign coach has managed to win the World Cup.
The curious factor Bayern Munich-Inter Milan
This is perhaps one of the most curious statistics in the history of the World Cup: in the last 11 editions of the tournament, at least one of the finalist teams featured a player from Bayern Munich, Inter Milan or players from both clubs.
Since 1982, only on two occasions (1986 and 2010) has a team without any representative from one of these two teams managed to win the world title.
According to the official player lists released by FIFA, 15 of the 48 teams that will compete in the 2026 World Cup will have at least one athlete from Bayern Munich or Inter Milan – or both.
Among them are powers such as Germany, France, England and the current champion, Argentina.
