After the euphoric giddiness of a 6-2 win over Iran, England were brought back to earth with a drab draw against the USA. That’s seen them slip a couple of places down the list of favourites for the World Cup even if they are now almost certainly through to the last 16.
Why not have a quick look at the whole of the current top 10 in the betting, then? We could think of literally no reason not to do it, and so we have done it. Teams ranked by best odds currently available at oddschecker.com
1) Brazil
Always up there, aren’t they? Always There Or Thereabouts. It’s Brazil! Carnival, Sex, Pele! But when it comes to the World Cup, they’ve been really quite underwhelming for a couple of decades now. Since Ronaldo’s Redemption in 2002 they’ve only made it past the quarter-finals once and given what happened next on that occasion would probably rather they hadn’t.
Still the only non-Europeans to triumph since Diego Maradona dragged Argentina to glory in 1986 and right now they do once again look the likeliest to break that cycle of European dominance having got off to a decent start with a 2-0 win over Serbia thanks to Richarlison’s second-half double.
Already this year they’ve won three games 4-0, another couple 5-1 and yet another 3-0. And the teams they’ve beaten aren’t joke teams, either. Chile, Paraguay, South Korea, Tunisia and Ghana are among those swept away by Tite’s side, one that has a distinctly Premier League flavour with your Alissons, your Thiago Silvas, your Casemiros and the Richarlisons of this world all key figures.
Cruised through South American qualifying, winning 14 and drawing three of their 17 games (scoring 40 goals and conceding just five) and being so far clear they never even bothered replaying the Argentina game that was abandoned when Brazilian health officials stormed the pitch demanding four Argentine players go into isolation for breaching Covid rules.
2) Spain
It seems somehow old-hat to think of Spain as serious contenders these days. They’re somehow a team that rose to astonishing prominence and widespread acceptance as the very best in the world and then just suddenly sort of weren’t anymore, really, without ever being short of good players or anything.
The semi-final run at last year’s Euros wasn’t ever really truly convincing, but did hint at a return to major form after a very meh run. And giving Costa Rica an absurd 7-0 thrashing is, we think all can agree, a pretty good start to a tournament. Especially after what happened to Argentina, but especially after what happened to Germany. If Spain can beat the Germans on Sunday, 7-0 or otherwise, then it’s another early exit for the Germans.
Spain, meanwhile, quite correctly leapfrog all the fancied teams who’ve made ropey starts to the tournament and join the three who conspicuously didn’t.
3) France
Holders and possessors of legendarily absurd strength in depth – even with N’Golo Kante, Paul Pogba and Karim Benzema missing – with the added bonus that the draw throws up the high possibility of a last-16 clash with Mexico, which is basically a bye to the quarter-finals under the ancient, unbreakable if inexplicable World Cup Law that decrees Mexico must always go out in the last 16.
After briefly looking like they might be about to go a little bit France by falling behind to an Australia side seemingly made up entirely of Scottish Premiership and former Scottish Premiership players, Kylian Mbappe then happened and Didier Deschamps’ side absolutely sauntered to a 4-1 win. They are up to second favourites and to be honest their second XI would be about sixth favourites and their third XI would be dark horses.
We’re still not sure France are a side we’d want to be backing when they’re particularly well fancied, and while their upward move in the betting was inevitable after such a fine opening win, there is now a higher chance than before of it actually being Argentina who lie in wait in the last 16, with the disconcertingly impressive England likeliest quarter-final opponents. That’s potentially two of the current top four even before reaching the semi-final.
4) England
There is a strange sort of powerful “Southgate’s England” about the fact a result that almost certainly puts them into the last 16 of the World Cup – they would have to be absolutely battered by Wales to miss out – came from a performance that has sapped all the energy and excitement from that giddy 6-2 thrashing of Iran a whole *checks notes* four days earlier.
That an almost certainly qualified England are now available at roughly the same price as an Argentina yet to register a point feels both accurate yet mental. England always have a game like this one in them during tournament group stages and there really wasn’t much harm done. Might even do them good to have expectations slightly dampened a bit, who knows. It was pretty grim, though.
5) Argentina
Messi’s Last Chance at the Big Dance. Argentina have a formidable squad that blends youth and experience perfectly, and hadn’t lost a game since the 2019 Copa America before they came a cropper against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
They won the 2021 Copa America to finally end Messi’s wait for a major international honour and do still have an excellent chance of adding global glory to continental success after an unbeaten World Cup qualifying campaign. But this is the tournament proper, and their recent record even before the shock defeat to the Saudis hasn’t been great.
Since winning it twice and finishing runner-up once in the space of four tournaments from 1978 to 1990, Argentina have been beyond the quarter-finals only once, when they narrowly lost the final to Germany in Brazil in extra-time after a goalless 90 minutes.
Before the loss on Tuesday they had given Italy a 3-0 shoeing in the Finalissima and had won their previous five games by a combined score of 19-0. This is a team and squad capable of far more than they illustrated in their Qatar opener. That they remain fourth favourites despite such conspicuous bed-sh*tting in their opening game says a great deal.
Their path to the knockouts is now anything but a cruise after defeat to the weakest of their Group C opponents, but Argentina should beat both Mexico and Poland before what could be a very tasty tie in the last 16 against France. It certainly wasn’t bad in 2018.
6) Portugal
Was their victory over Ghana and more convincing than Netherlands’ against Senegal? Probably not but it’s been enough to seem them leapfrog the Dutch anyway, probably due to mounting fears that Cristiano Ronaldo might win the tournament by himself out of pure spite, the prick.
7) Netherlands
Weren’t brilliant in beating Senegal and were really quite poor in a 1-1 draw against Ecuador. That their odds have suffered far, far less for these two events than England’s have for following the Iran thrashing with a dour draw against the USA says something about the national character of the English, in a way. Still feels very much like it’s the more conspicuous struggles of those directly below them in this list that is keeping the Netherlands afloat, but they are near certainties for a last-16 spot now and shouldn’t exactly be getting the fear about taking on anyone who scrambles out of Group B when the music stops.
8) Belgium
Achieved the almost impressive feat of managing to win without moving the needle and provided a stern challenge to the concept we established with the Netherlands that ‘an opening win is an opening win’ after being given the absolute runaround by Canada before completing an xG atrocity and burgling a 1-0 win thanks to Michy Batshuayi’s smart finish.
But absolutely nothing in that game remotely dispelled the notion that this is a tiring tournament too far for a Golden Generation facing the harsh reality of going down as significant underachievers given the sheer depth and breadth of talent Belgium have had at their disposal over the last decade.
Had Germany, Croatia and Denmark not made varying degrees of a mess of their own opening games then Belgium would likely have slipped out of the top 10 here despite winning. If and buts, though, and the fact is they did win and the possibility that they grow into the tournament from here can’t be entirely ruled out but would now constitute a major surprise. A squad that contains six players with over 100 caps as well as a couple with mere 90-something to their names looks to have tipped the scales from experienced to exhausted.
9) Germany
Are we… is it… could this possibly… have we reached a point in football where actually it is possible to write off the Germans?
For a team with such a formidable record in major tournaments, though, recent efforts have been spectacularly shonky. After reaching at least the last four of six majors in a row between 2006 and 2016 they have gone out in the group stage and last 16 at their last two attempts and after the late collapse against Japan have now lost their opening game at two successive World Cups. They’d previously lost their opening game just once in 18 World Cups. It’s both confusing and enjoyable.
And unlike, say, Argentina, Germany do not find themselves in a group where you can still firmly expect them to win their remaining games after making a shock bollocks of the opener: their next game was already an eye-catchingly huge one, a Sunday evening clash with Spain that always felt more knockout than group game. Hansi Flick’s side have ensured it now is a knockout game, for themselves at least. They were sixth favourites before kicking a ball and now in danger of tumbling out of the top 10 and the tournament itself altogether.
10) Denmark
What had appeared to be a pretty ropey opening effort, a goalless draw against Tunisia that was entertaining enough but still nevertheless a goalless draw with Tunisia, had cost the not-very-dark horses their top 10 spot until the more conspicuous missteps of others forced further recalibration and sent the Danes back up to 10th. Either Uruguay or Croatia would have been in this spot had they not played out far more damning goalless draws of their own in games they ought to have won.
Both those sides, like Denmark to an extent, seemed to make the same mistake of settling for a point and at least avoiding defeat in an opening game that now piles pressure on to a game against a much better team down the line. We understand the power of “don’t lose your first game” as a strategy, but it feels like one that is overplayed and accepted almost without question. Call us maverick free-thinkers if you must, but we reckon winning your opening game is a much, much better way to go about things than merely not losing it.