World Cup 2026 Betting Tips and Preview

“30 years of hurt” sang Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds in that glorious summer of 1996. What a summer it was, until the Germans beat us on penalties, of course. Never then did we think it would or even could become 60 years of hurt. But that is where we are. It is now 60 years since England won a meaningful tournament (we refuse to clutch to straws and include Le Tournoi back in 1997!).

 

Will this finally be our year, the year football finally comes home?

 

Well, in order to do so we must do better than France and Kylian Mbappe, Spain and Lamine Yamal, Argentina and Lionel Messi, Brazil and Vinicius Jr, Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo, Germany and Jamal Musiala, and Scotland and Lyndon Dykes……..

Spain 9/2 (Ladbrokes)

France 5/1 (Betfred)

England 7/1 (Betfred)

Brazil 8/1 (Bet365)

Argentina 9/1 (Bet365)

Portugal 10/1 (Betfred)

Germany 14/1 (Coral)

Holland 20/1 (Bet365)

Norway 28/1 (Ladbrokes)

Belgium 33/1 (Betfred)

Scotland 250/1 (Bet365)

 

 

We are going to go through a process of elimination here, to try to find the winner. Firstly, only 8 nations have ever won the World Cup: Uruguay (1930, 1950), Italy (1934, 1938, 1982, 2006) Germany (1954, 1974, 1990, 2014), Brazil (1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002), England (1966), Argentina (1978, 1986, 2022), France (1998, 2018) and Spain (2010).

 

We are instantly going to rule out every single team who has never won it before. This includes Portugal, who are one of the favourites but we believe have a conflict of interests in Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes. Both are incredibly selfish, self-centred players who want to be the star. It’s not good for a team game. It also means ruling out both Belgium and Holland who we believe had their Golden Generations, failed and are now both miles away from their peak teams.

 

Italy never qualified, so that rules out one of the eight previous winners. Uruguay are in the same boat as Holland and Belgium, in that they had their Golden Generation with Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani and Diego Forlan, and this team are nothing like that one. Plus, it is now 76 years since they last won a World Cup, it’s not like they are recent winners.

 

That leaves 6: Spain, France, Brazil, Argentina, England and Germany.

 

We don’t fancy Germany at all, again, this team is nowhere near as good as the one who last won it in 2014.

 

And we are sorry to say, England will not win it. We never, ever do anything outside of Europe. Our best ever finish at tournaments outside Europe has been the Quarter-Finals. We just cannot ever acclimatise to the heat and humidity in these non-European countries. We will come back to England soon, but we do not expect to end 60 years of hurt, sadly.

 

Spain, France, Brazil, Argentina. It might not be too adventurous, but the winner will come from one of the 4, of the top 5 favourites. We have had a shock winner in the Euros, but not very often and not very recently (Greece 2004, Denmark 1992). But we haven’t had shock winners of the World Cup. EVER. Every single time, the winner has been one of the favourites, and this year will be no different.

 

A lot will come down to which team’s main man does the business – Spain (Yamal), France (Mbappe), Argentina (Messi), Vini Jr (Brazil). We think Messi had his time and is not quite the player he was four years ago, so we will rule them out. Of course, they do have Julian Alvarez and Lautaro Martinez, but they have a really poor defence.

 

We just have a feeling that Spain, who have the best midfield in the world, along with several attacking players capable of moments of magic, could repeat their Euros success from two years ago. But we cannot rule out Brazil, either, so we are going to have a bet on Spain to win it but a smaller saver on Brazil, too.

 

Kylian Mbappe 11/2 (BetFred)

Harry Kane 7/1 (Bet365)

Mikel Oyarzabal 14/1 (BetFred)

Erling Haaland 14/1 (Bet365)

Lionel Messi 14/1 (Coral)

Lamine Yamal 20/1 (Ladbrokes)

Cristiano Ronaldo 20/1 (Bet365)

Julian Alvarez 25/1 (Coral)

Vinicius Jr 28/1 (Bet365)

Raphinha 28/1 (BetFred)

Ousmane Dembele 33/1 (Ladbrokes)

Lautaro Martinez 33/1 (Coral)

 

When choosing a player for the Golden Boot, there are a few things to consider. Is he the key man for his team? Will he take penalties? Does he take freekicks too, maybe?

 

How far will his nation go? It’s ok thinking Haaland could score loads, but realistically, will Norway go far in the tournament? And will he get the same kind of service as players like Mbappe and Kane will get?

 

Finally, what opposition do they have in the Group Stage? Take a look at the likes of Vini Jr and Raphinha; they have Haiti, Scotland and Morocco in the Group Stage, so they could bag a hatful.

 

Tied in with the fact that we think Brazil will go far in the tournament due to their quality and being used to American weather conditions, and how easy their group looks, we think both Vini Jr and Raphina look excellent each way bets at those juicy odds.

 

Make sure to get a bookmaker that is doing ¼ odds for top 4, and you are effectively getting 28/1 if they finish as top goalscorer and 7/1 if they finish 2nd, 3^rd or 4^th top goalscorer, which is much better value than Mbappe or Kane.

 

The Golden Generation failed miserably. We then went through the Dark Ages and English football – internationally – looked in serious trouble. For all that he is Marmite, Gareth Southgate gave the country hope once again.

 

We didn’t qualify in 2008. We got murdered by Germany in 2010, going out in the Second Round. We got knocked out in the QF by Italy in 2012, which is as good as we could have hoped for from that extremely poor England side. 2014, we finished bottom of the Group stage having lost against Italy and Uruguay and then only drawing against Costa Rica.

 

And then came the nation’s biggest ever humiliation, getting knocked out by Iceland in 2016 in probably the worst performance we have ever seen from an England side. We lacked passion, creativity, positivity, we were clueless. We were really were at our lowest ebb.

 

And then Sir Gareth rode in. And he lifted the hopes of the nation once again. The World Cup Semi-Final in 2018, the Euros Runners-Up in 2020, the World Cup Quarter-Finals in 2022, the Euros Runners-Up in 2024! Other than when we won the World Cup in 1966, we have never had it as good as a nation. No other manager has come as close to winning us something. And yet, he is much maligned, a lot of fans still don’t like him, and never did.

 

We believe in the future we will appreciate Southgate and the job he did more than we do now. We do not expect England to go further than the quarter-finals. We are not as good as our fans and media seem to think we are, and some of the squad decisions Thomas Tuchel has made are awful.

 

Imagine being in the 80^th minute of a semi-final, 2-1 down against France. Tuchel turns to the bench. He sees Trent Alexander-Arnold and Cole Palmer, two players who can come on and produce a spark, or a pass to get us the equaliser. 

 

But no, in reality, he will see Djed Spence and Noni Madueke.

 

We would never encourage anyone to put a single penny on England this tournament. Please, England, prove us wrong!

 

If we think England’s chances are poor, take a look at this Scotland squad, it really is embarrassing to see how far they have fallen. And yet, even in the days of Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen, Billy Bremner, Denis Law, Graeme Souness, etc, etc, they never got further than the Group Stage. That is a seriously shocking statistic when you consider how good some of their teams were back in the 1960’s to 1990’s.

 

Nowadays, though, the team on paper is poor. Made even worse by the injury to poor Billy Gilmour, which sees him miss the tournament.

 

And yet… this might be their best ever chance of qualifying from the Group Stage. First of all, this Scotland team play better than the sum of their parts. They actually play like a team. Steve Clarke gets the best out of them. And they do have SOME quality players; Andy Robertson, Scott McTominay and John McGinn.

 

They haven’t been to a World Cup since 1998. They haven’t won a World Cup game since Italia 90. But the tournament has been boosted from 32 teams to 48 teams for the first time ever, meaning not only do the top 2 teams qualify from each group, but the 8 best third placed teams also go through. Whereas usually 16 teams from 32 would qualify for the second round, this time round 32 teams from 48 qualify, meaning a seriously watered down second round, and a much better chance for poor teams to reach the knockout stages.

 

It is definitely Scotland’s best ever chance to qualify from the the Group Stage. The first game, against Haiti, will be key. They must win that. Then a point against Morocco could be enough for them to even finish second. They must take at least 4 points from those 2 games (though they will be desperate for 6), before they face Brazil in the final game. They do NOT want to be going into that game needing to win!

 

Will Scotland do it this time for their long suffering fans, or will they flop once again?

Our first betting recommendation is to look around for the best odds and the best offers. Bookmakers are always falling over themselves to offer great promotions at big events like the World Cup, so be sure to look for the best offers and odds and take advantage of them. 

 

Spain to win the World Cup 9/2 (Ladbrokes) – 8 points

Brazil to win the World Cup 8/1 (Bet365) – 4 points

Vinicius Jr to be Top Goalscorer 28/1 (Bet365) – 2 points EW

Raphinha to be Top Goalscorer  28/1 (BetFred) – 2 points EW