World Cup 2026 quarterfinals: is football coming home?

The World Cup is now down to just eight teams with the quarterfinals taking place over the next four days, the semifinals in the middle of next week and the final on the following Sunday, 19 July.

What’s happened so far?

All but eight of the 104 matches of World Cup 2026 have now been completed. In those 96 matches, 280 goals have been scored at a rate of 2.9 goals per game – the highest rate of goals per game at a World Cup since 1970 (when the rate was 2.96). The group stages saw 215 goals over 72 matches, a rate of essentially three goals per game.

The era of World Cup matches being tight and cautious affairs appears to be something of the past. Italia ‘90 was famously cautious, with just 2.2 goals per game; and in the calendar year of 1990, that was lower scoring than the average international match, which featured 2.4 goals.

With the exception of USA ‘94, all World Cups through to 2010 had fewer goals per game than international football at the time – the 2010 World Cup was the most egregious, with 2.3 goals per game when matches that year had 2.6 goals per game. But the four editions since then have seen more goals than the average international match in their given year – and matches in 2026 to date have had 2.8 goals.

Colombia and Switzerland’s goalless affair in the final match of the round of 16 meant that the record from 2018 of 26 goals at that stage of the tournament remained unbroken.

How close is the quarterfinal line-up to what was expected?

The resulting quarterfinal line-up is close to what would have been expected. We gave Brazil a 69% chance of progressing against Norway, but Erling Haaland had other ideas, sending the Norwegians through instead. Egypt came incredibly close to the biggest shock – we gave them just a 23% chance of upsetting the holders Argentina.

We gave Belgium a 64% chance of progressing. Since our model is not player-specific, it did not adjust for Folarin Balogun’s initial ban following his red card in the last 32, nor the controversial suspension of that ban after a phone call from the US president Donald Trump to FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

The comprehensive manner of Belgium’s 4-1 win over the United States suggests that those events may well have motivated a previously lacklustre Belgian side to perform at a higher level. The United States’ tournament exit followed co-hosts Canada and Mexico also being eliminated.

As we anticipated, England dealt with the altitude at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City. We saw England as a goal better than their hosts, even accounting for home advantage – and despite the drama of red cards and penalties, England turned out to be that one goal better in a 3-2 win.

We also gave France – who had scored 13 goals in their four previous tournament matches to date – expected goals of just 1 against Paraguay – a scorecast that turned out right. Some of the more cynical aspects of Paraguayans’ play arguably took the shine off what was a very well organised defensive display.

Finally, Switzerland progressed despite our model only giving them a 30% chance of succeeding.

Models like the one we use – Poisson regressions to yield expected goals – are not perfect. But they do yield predictions that are not wildly out. Throughout, we have given Argentina a higher likelihood of winning the tournament than the bookmakers have – and perhaps their shaky progress to date reflects our probability being too high. But on paper, where football famously is not played, Lionel Messi and his team-mates have had a very easy pathway to this stage.

Who is going to win?

In this update, we have Argentina at 36% to win the competition now that just eight teams remain. Spain are at 18%, France at 17% and England at 15%. Hence, among themselves, the four ‘seeded teams’, who have remained in the competition to this stage, will have an 87% chance of winning the competition. The outsiders – led by Belgium at 5%, Morocco and Switzerland at 3%, and Norway at 1% – have just a 13% chance between them of winning what would be their first World Cup.

Europe provides six of the eight quarterfinalists; Africa provides just one team after Egypt’s heartbreaking late exit; and Argentina are South America’s only representatives. Taken together, there is a 60% chance that the World Cup will be won by a European team in host countries outside Europe for the third time. Before the last 16, there was still a roughly 50/50 chance of the World Cup going to Europe or elsewhere.

Table 1. Quarter-final matchup summary

Each quarterfinal, in principle, has a clear favourite – the seeded team in each case (Argentina, France, England and Spain). They are all favourites, with Argentina at 78% to eliminate Switzerland, England at 78% to overcome Norway, France at 70% to beat Morocco, and Spain at 66% to defeat Belgium.

It is worth emphasising that these probabilities mean that there is a 72% that at least one of the four seeded teams does not make the semifinals (treating each match as independent of the others). The chance that all four make it through is 28% – and the truly wild card outcome that none of the top four seeded teams make it is just 0.5%.

What’s going to happen in the matches?

We might expect that Norway versus England and Spain against Belgium will provide the most goals:

• England have 2.3 expected goals and Norway 1.1.
• Spain have 2 expected goals and Belgium 1.4.
• Argentina have 1.3 expected goals and Switzerland 0.6.
• And France have 1.4 expected goals and Morocco 0.8.

Table 2. Scorecast: Norway vs England

As such, there’s a 10% chance that England prevail 2-1, with that being the most likely scoreline. There’s a 58% chance that both teams score. Since that happened in the four knockout stage ties in which these two teams have been involved, it seems likely that Saturday evening will be another tense one.

In the France-Morocco match, there’s only a 41% chance that both teams score and despite the French being big favourites, there’s almost a 10% chance that Morocco nicks a 1-0 win. But France are more likely to score the only goal (16% probability), and there’s a 49% chance that each team scores at most one goal.

Table 3. Scorecast: France vs Morocco

In the Spain-Belgium match, there’s a 65% chance that both teams score, with a 2-1 Spain win and a 1-1 draw being the two most likely scorelines at 9%.

Table 4. Scorecast: Spain vs Belgium

As with their other knockout ties so far, Argentina are strong favourites to win: there’s a 21% chance that they win 1-0; and a 13% chance that it’s 2-0 to Messi’s team. Few would have placed bets on 3-2 scorelines in their previous two knockout matches given their relatively strong defence, and again, it’s unlikely at 1%. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Table 5. Scorecast: Argentina vs Switzerland

What could the semifinals and final look like?

The range of possible semifinals are now quite limited: on England’s side of the draw, there can only be four: Norway or England facing Argentina or Switzerland. In turn, there are now only 16 possible finals that can happen.

Of the semifinal combinations, there’s a 60% chance that England face Argentina in Atlanta on 15 July, and a 46% chance that Spain face France in Dallas on 14 July. There’s an 18% chance of England facing Switzerland and of Norway facing Argentina in Atlanta; and a slender 5% chance that Norway line up against Switzerland. There’s a 20% chance that Morocco play Spain in a repeat of the famous 2022 last 16 encounter, which the African team won on penalties.

The most likely final (at 23%) is Spain versus Argentina, followed by a repeat of the last World Cup final – France against Argentina – at 21%. Behind these potential outcomes are the two equivalent finals if England can beat Argentina, assuming that both make the semifinals: England versus Spain at 11%; and England against France at 10%. The least likely final is between Morocco and Norway at 0.5%.

Author: James Reade

Photo: Team flags sized approximately according to win probability