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One of the more baffling traditions of major football tournaments is that people still request my predictions despite overwhelming evidence that it is not a service I should be providing.

Over the past weeks I have lost count of the people who have asked me the same questions about this World Cup. Who will win it? Who are the dark horses? Who is going home early? And, most importantly, where should they stick a few euros?

To which my answer is always the same: have you actually read any of my previous predictions?

My forecasting record is patchier than a non-league pitch in February. I have confidently backed teams that immediately fell apart, dismissed others who went on to win trophies and generally approached predicting football with the precision of a man playing darts during an earthquake. With a blindfold on.

To be fair, I did say Arsenal would win the Premier League last season, a fact I plan to mention at every available opportunity till I am physically stopped. Unfortunately, one good prediction does not erase a lifetime of forecasting misdemeanours.

Yet, like every football fan on the planet, I find myself getting sucked back in. Because football has a remarkable ability to convince us that this time we know �  we’ve spotted something everyone else has missed, we’ve analysed the squads, the managers, the form, the draw and the conditions so thoroughly that nothing can possibly go wrong.

Then somebody’s star striker gets injured in training, a goalkeeper drops the ball into his own net, and Haiti somehow beat one of the favourites despite only having one shot on target.

That’s the beauty of tournament football. The World Cup is football’s ultimate chaos machine: six weeks of drama, overreaction, national hysteria and pundits suddenly explaining why an unknown left-back from a second division is key to everything.

Still, a prediction has been requested. And it would be remiss of me not to deliver. But first, let’s look at the main contenders.

My forecasting record is patchier than a non-league pitch in February

England

England arrive at every tournament with enough expectation to power a small city. By the time it’s over, most of that energy has been converted into frustration, finger-pointing and documentaries about what went wrong.

The talent is undeniable. Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and Harry Kane would walk into most teams. The real controversy is who Thomas Tuchel has left at home, with Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and Harry Maguire among the headline omissions.

Tuchel says he wants specialists and a proper team rather than the most talented Englishmen available. Yeah, because talent never won a cup, right?

The upside is that England now have something they rarely possess at major tournaments: a manager who actually knows how to win things. The downside is he is German, which means if England don’t win it, we will be back to the theory that he was a deep-cover agent sent to sabotage the Three Lions from within.

England absolutely have the talent to win this. The question is whether England can survive being England for six weeks.

Spain

Spain are probably the most complete side in the tournament.

They still pass beautifully, but thankfully no longer spend entire matches treating possession statistics like a competitive hobby. There’s pace, directness and genuine menace throughout the side. And Lamine Yamal’s doing things most players spend an entire career failing to do.

Watching Spain can feel like playing against your teenage son on FIFA. You don’t really know what’s going on, every attack looks dangerous, and somehow all the best players are on the same team.

If football was decided purely on quality, Spain would be very difficult to ignore.

France

France have so much talent they could probably leave half the squad at the airport and still make it to the quarter-finals.

Nearly every position is stacked with elite players, and every tournament seems to produce another frighteningly gifted youngster who appears from nowhere and goes on to acquire a transfer value roughly equivalent to the GDP of a small nation.

The challenge with France has rarely been the football itself.

Historically, they’ve occasionally treated major tournaments as an opportunity to test how many competing egos can be squeezed into one dressing room before it explodes. The good news is that this current group appears considerably less combustible than some of their predecessors. The bad news is that French football has a long history of waiting until everyone relaxes before introducing a fresh crisis.

Germany

Every few years somebody declares Germany are finished. Their football is outdated, the production line has stopped, and the old magic has gone. Germany generally responds by turning up at a major tournament and making life deeply uncomfortable for everyone involved.

The years since 2014 have not always been kind, but there are unmistakable signs that the old machine is beginning to hum again. They may not have the star power of some rivals, but they remain uniquely capable of growing stronger as a tournament progresses. One minute nobody is talking about them, the next they’re in a semi-final wondering what all the fuss was about.

Brazil

Brazil should always be taken seriously. It is as much a part of the World Cup as ridiculous hairstyles, inflatable mascots and television cameras lingering on attractive supporters for slightly longer than necessary.

Even when things are not quite clicking, Brazil have enough attacking talent to terrify any defence. It’s genetic. In fact, on a Rio beach somewhere there’s probably a teenager nutmegging three opponents before breakfast who would improve half the squads at this tournament.

The famous yellow shirt still carries an aura few nations can match, even if recent Brazilian sides have not played with the same swagger as their ancestors.

No one will enjoy meeting them in the knockout stages.

Argentina

Argentina are defending champions, and carry the two most dangerous weapons in football: confidence and Lionel Messi.

Four years ago they got their hands on the trophy in Qatar and ended decades of debate about Messi’s international legacy. The challenge now is showing that success was not the final chapter.

Argentina are street­wise, organised and fiercely competitive. They’re not always the most entertaining team to watch, but they’re one of the hardest to beat.

Messi may no longer be able to drag a team through an entire tournament on his own, but he can still decide one. That alone makes Argentina a threat.

Portugal

Portugal are one of those teams everyone rates but nobody quite trusts to go all the way.

On paper, they have everything required to win a World Cup. They are technically excellent, tactically flexible and possess the kind of squad depth most nations would happily commit minor crimes to acquire. Yet for all their talent, they still feel like a team searching for a defining World Cup performance.

And then there is Cristiano Ronaldo. At 41, he continues to defy both logic and biology. Whether he is a leading man or merely a supporting character, his presence guarantees Portugal will never be short of belief.

The challenge for Portugal is simple. Stop being a team full of brilliant players and become a brilliant team. If they manage that, they can beat anybody.

The Outsiders

Every World Cup produces at least one team that wasn’t supposed to make it as far as they do; that arrives with modest expectations, ruins several predictions and leaves half the football world pretending they always believed.

Morocco have already shown they belong at this level. Their run to the semi-finals four years ago was supposed to be a one-off. The problem for everyone else is that they now look capable of doing it again. They are organised, disciplined and completely unimpressed by reputations.

Definite dark horses.

Then there are the Dutch. Every tournament I develop one completely irrational hunch and this year it happens to involve a team dressed entirely in orange.

Holland are rarely boring. Sometimes they are brilliant, sometimes they are chaotic and occasionally they manage both simultaneously. They have spent decades proving that footballing talent and footballing self-destruction can happily coexist in the same dressing room.

One of the joys of the World Cup is that it never entirely follows the script. The favourites usually dominate the conversation, but somewhere in the background there is always a team sharpening a knife and waiting for the right moment to ruin somebody else’s party.

Morocco and Holland look the most likely candidates to be carrying the cake out of the door while everyone else is still arguing about the seating plan.

So there you have it: seven favourites, two outsiders and a prediction record that suggests you should immediately back one of the other 39 teams.

But if you’re forcing me to pick one name before a ball has been kicked, I’m going with France.

Not because they’re perfect. They aren’t. World Cups are rarely won by the team that plays the prettiest football or dominates the tournament. Often they’re won by a side that keeps its nerve when the pressure cranks up, finds a way through messy moments and has enough quality left when the tournament starts taking a physical toll. For me, that team is France. Which means they’ll probably be on the way home in a couple of weeks.

 

e-mail: jamescalvertmalta@gmail.com

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