I've just submitted my predictions for the World Cup 2026 Fantasy Contest on Sportsblock and so I thought it would be interesting to see who other Hive users have picked as the 16 teams they think will be most successful in the tournament.
Join the contest here
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The favourites
Let's start with the teams that users are backing with their x16 multiplier.
In most instances, you'd assume that this would be the team that users think will win the most games and in doing so, is likely to win the World Cup!
| Team | Users selected as x 16 multiplier |
|---|---|
| Spain | 16 |
| France | 11 |
| Argentina | 6 |
| Brazil | 6 |
| USA | 4 |
| England | 3 |
| Germany | 1 |
| Austria | 1 |
| Ghana | 1 |
| Scotland | 1 |
No great surprise to see that the joint favourites Spain and France top this list.
Current holders Argentina are also well backed as are 5 times champions Brazil.
Of course, despite their brilliant record in the tournament, this is the same Brazil side that finished 5th in the South American qualifying group and therefore only just qualified for the World Cup.
Yes, they've still got some of that exciting Samba flair in the form of Vincius Jnr, Raphina, etc but none of the current squad have scored more than 11 international goals in their careers to date. Dark horses maybe but favourites? I'm not so sure...
4 users have selected the USA for the 16x multiplier
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt then - the host nation has won the competition on 6 previous occasions. I'd be very surprised if that trend continues!
3 people believe that football is coming home!
I'm English and I haven't picked them in my 16 full stop. Best to keep your expectations low coming into major tournaments in my experience.
If England are successful in this tournament then I'd expect it'll be as a result of playing some fairly diabolical football. But you know what I'm ok with that. Matches here start late evening so I'm looking forward to sleeping soundly on the sofa well before half-time.
The most commonly selected teams
So Spain and France are seen as the favourites
Quelle surprise!
Qué sorpresa!
But they aren't the most popular picks!
That honour goes to World Cup debutants Norway who have been selected by 47 of the 50 Hive users signed up to date!
Some well known names in the form of Haaland and Odegaard will undoubtedly have boosted their popularity as too will the fact that they are in Pool C of the Sportsblock contest.
| Team | Selcted by no. of Hive accounts |
|---|---|
| Norway | 47 |
| Spain | 46 |
| France | 45 |
| Argentina | 44 |
| Brazil | 39 |
| Germany | 36 |
| England | 34 |
| Croatia | 32 |
| Uruguay | 31 |
| Morocco | 29 |
| Japan | 29 |
| Colombia | 28 |
| Switzerland | 27 |
| Paraguay | 26 |
| Egypt | 25 |
| Teams selected by 50% or more of participants |
The obvious team missing from the above table is the USA. Picked 4 times for 16 x multiplier, they are in just 2 other participants picks at the time of writing!
Whatever happens with Team USA it'll certainly be impactful on the Sportsblock contest!
The untouchables
From the most popular, to the teams that no one is selecting!
The Netherlands find themselves in Pool A of the contest and as such, participants have opted to choose the bigger names (see above) over a good but not spectacular Dutch team.
The fact that the Netherlands have reached the final on 3 occasions and came third as recently as 2014 doesn't appear to have held the same weight as Brazil's past performances, at least in the minds of Hive users.
The only other side not to be selected at least once by the 50 participants in the contest to date is Qatar.
Qatar are ranked 55 in the world by FIFA which puts them ahead of Iraq (56), South Africa (60), Saudi Arabia (61), Bosnia and Herzegovina (64), Ghana (73), Curacao (83) and New Zealand (85), all of whom have at least some support amongst the Hive base.
Either of these teams might be worth a punt as a high impact differential for any new participants who have yet to join the contest!
The template team
Here then is the most commonly picked 16 using the rule of 4 selections from each pot. The average multiplier assigned to each team is also shown.
The most immediate observation here is that Hive users are backing European sides. In each pot, it's a European team that is the most popular with the highest average multiplier attached to it.
Is that the way to go? European teams have historically underperformed when the tournament is not on their own continent.
Spain (2010) and Germany (2014) are the only European teams to win the World Cup outside the continent of Europe (assuming that Russia is at least partially in Europe).
Let's consider then which Hive users picks most closely match the template model above.
The below table shows the number of teams each participant has picked that match either the 16 teams above in the 'template' model or any of England, Germany, Switzerland and Colombia who are within over 50% of the teams selected and so can be considered 'popular alternatives' as opposed to true differentials.
| Rank | Participant | Picks matched to template team | Multiplier distance from template team |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @rajpootg | 15 | 26.5 |
| 2 | @workingdad | 15 | 34.3 |
| 3 | @daverick | 14 | 20.5 |
| 4 | @notsportscenter | 14 | 20.9 |
| 5 | @uwelang | 14 | 21.9 |
| 6 | @sportsgeek | 14 | 23.6 |
| 7 | @gen-quimba | 14 | 24.6 |
| 8 | @besheda | 14 | 34.8 |
| 9 | @davideownzall | 14 | 43.6 |
| 10 | @paleshelter | 14 | 92.4 |
| 11 | @valentin86 | 13 | 19.2 |
| 12 | @alexgg | 13 | 21.1 |
| 13 | @gwajnberg | 13 | 23.9 |
| 14 | @fullcoverbetting | 13 | 24.2 |
| 15 | @lazzvi | 13 | 26.5 |
| 16 | @acidyo | 13 | 27.3 |
| 17 | @shebe | 13 | 27.6 |
| 18 | @talesfrmthecrypt | 13 | 27.9 |
| 19 | @jaki01 | 13 | 28.9 |
| 20 | @mondoshawan | 13 | 34.4 |
| 21 | @danideuder | 12 | 18.7 |
| 22 | @r1c4rd0 | 12 | 20.4 |
| 23 | @risingstargame | 12 | 24.5 |
| 24 | @reiseamateur | 12 | 24.9 |
| 25 | @kobold-djawa | 12 | 27.7 |
| 26 | @chris-uk | 12 | 31.2 |
| 27 | @mephiko | 12 | 33 |
| 28 | @palomap3 | 11 | 14 |
| 29 | @x-rain | 11 | 17.9 |
| 30 | @livinguktaiwan | 11 | 18.7 |
| 31 | @doombot75 | 11 | 19.1 |
| 32 | @oskarl21 | 11 | 21 |
| 33 | @niallon11 | 11 | 26.2 |
| 34 | @ace108 | 11 | 30 |
| 35 | @racibo | 11 | 32.7 |
| 36 | @onemanonewrite | 11 | 48 |
| 37 | @nupulse | 10 | 13.9 |
| 38 | @vempromundo | 10 | 15 |
| 39 | @friendlymoose | 10 | 16.6 |
| 40 | @zusi78 | 10 | 17.2 |
| 41 | @tortangkahoy | 10 | 18.9 |
| 42 | @louis.random | 10 | 23.9 |
| 43 | @longganisan | 9 | 15.6 |
| 44 | @hatdogsensei | 9 | 20.8 |
| 45 | @treefrognada | 9 | 25.1 |
| 46 | @emeka4 | 9 | 51.7 |
| 47 | @tobywalter | 8 | 18.8 |
| 48 | @jmehta | 8 | 19.8 |
| 49 | @kennybot | 8 | 20.8 |
| 50 | @caspermoeller89 | 8 | 24 |
@rajpootg and @workingdad both have 15 of the their 16 picks that match the communities template so far.
In fact, over 50% of participants have chosen at least 3 quarters of the teams within their 16 that are currently very popular picks overall.
On the flip side, we have 4 participants who have 50% of their picks made up of true differentials.
Some like @tobywalter have gone for the standard selection in pot 1 then mixed and matched in the 3 other pots. A lower risk but potentially high up side stragegy where the performance of some of the middle to lower ranked teams is concerned.
Others like @kennybot and @caspermoeller89 have gone off-piste altogether by bringing in less popular picks and assigning their multipliers in a non-standard manner.
The additional column in the table above shows how far off the average multiplier of those 20 teams each user is. The higher the number, the greater distance from the template average. This measure is most useful where a user has selected over 75% of the 20 most popular teams.
Here @paleshelter really stands out! They may have picked 14 popular teams but they've essentially assigned their multiplier in reverse order to the way that the majority of participants are thinking.
Their top pick? Ghana! A team that hasn't won in their last 6 outings scoring just 3 goals in that same period.
@emeka4 have also gone rogue with their picks selecting only 9 of the popular sides and then assigning some questionable multipliers including Scotland as their top pick.
The Tartan Army's World Cup record is P23 W4 D7 L12 F25 A41 - they have never reached the knockout stage of a major tournament and will have to overcome 5 times champions Brasil and AFCON winners Morocco if they are to improve on that record.
The AI / Supercomputer model for winning
I put all of the first 50 picks made by the community alongside the multipliers assigned into AI and then asked it to analyse the Supercomputer predictions listed on the ESPN page here and give me 16 picks that represent the best value against the 50 players already participating.
Here's what it came up with!
It's 16 teams and the multipliers applied are hardly revolutionary! In fact, it's not so very far off what the community has already collectively established as a 'template' team.
The big changes come at the top where it recommends either England or Germany as significantly better picks than Brazil. I very much agree with that sentiment, I think Brazil have been over backed by the community at present.
Further down it favours Colombia over Japan. Again, I think that's a decent selection given some of the injury problems that the Japan side are brining into the tournament.
The Ivory Coast have similar win and qualification probabilities as the likes of Algeria and so given they are a less popular pick at the time of writing it seems sensible to include them as a low risk differential.
Ghana are only in 10 users selections at present so again, they are a decent punt for a pot 4 pick even if it is at a very low multiplier.
The users that most closely match the AI team with their picks are @jaki01 and myself.
I didn't actually run this data through the AI model before making my selection but I did look at the odds on qualification for the knockout rounds to help guide me. I then disregarded England because I never pick teams/players I have an emotional attachment to.
I've also given the likes of Norway, Colombia and Turkey (all of whom I think are dark horses) much higher multipliers than the AI is recommending.
I've decided to add the AI selection exactly as above for @hivefpl 's pick. Any Hive and Medals won will be distributed as part of the prize fund for the 26/27 Hive FPL contests.
Join the Contest Now!
The World Cup starts in 4 days. Get your picks in now for the chance of winning 500 Hive and 10,000 Medals!
Join here
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