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With one week to go before the start of the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, Goldman Sachs released its prediction model for the tournament. This isn’t the first time the bank has ventured into this territory: since 2014, it has been applying statistical tools to soccer with the same rigor it uses to analyze financial markets. The model combines historical match data, team rankings, scoring ability, and geographic factors to estimate each team’s odds. This time, the analysis was based on nearly 20,000 official international matches played since 1978.
The bank assigns Spain a 25.7% probability of winning the tournament, followed by France at 18.9%, Argentina at 14.3%, and Brazil at 7.6%. The Spanish team’s lead is no coincidence: it currently ranks first in the Elo rating, which assesses a team’s level based on its recent results and the strength of its opponents. The bank’s economists, led by Jan Hatzius, noted that their prediction aligns with the historical pattern that the World Cup almost always returns to Europe after being won by a South American team.
For Latin America, the model sends mixed signals. Argentina has a 27.1% chance of reaching the final and a 42.4% chance of reaching the semifinals, and is also projected to advance as the group leader with nine points. However, the analysis applies what it calls the “winner’s slump”: teams entering as defending champions tend to face greater difficulties in repeating their victory, a factor that works against the Qatar 2022 champion. Brazil, meanwhile, ranks fourth globally with a 7.6% chance. The model even projects a semifinal matchup against Argentina, one of the most compelling matchups the tournament could offer.
The rest of the region lags far behind. Mexico has a 68% chance of advancing past the group stage thanks to its status as host, while the United States has a 39% chance and Canada a 50% chance of moving on to the next round. For the other Latin American countries, the estimates are less encouraging. Opta’s supercomputer, which also simulated the tournament in thousands of scenarios, gave Colombia just a 2.1% chance of winning the title.
It’s worth putting this exercise into perspective. In 2014, Goldman Sachs predicted a Brazil-Argentina final that never happened, and in 2018, its algorithm repeatedly favored Brazil, Germany, and Spain—teams that were eliminated earlier than expected. Soccer, like the markets, has an element of unpredictability that no model can fully capture. What is certain is that the same methodology the bank uses to forecast economic cycles now points to a Spain-Argentina final on July 19 in New York. A projection that, at the very least, promises to be entertaining to follow.
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