"After the disappointment of the 2022 final, France looks well equipped to go one better this time." That's RBC senior economist Cathal Kennedy's verdict — and 160 of his peers broadly agree. A Reuters poll conducted through late May and into June puts France on 35% of the vote to win the 2026 World Cup, with Spain close behind on 31%.
Those numbers align with what betting markets are already pricing. If it plays out that way, Didier Deschamps becomes the first coach since Italy's Vittorio Pozzo in 1938 to win two World Cups — and the only man to have won it both as a player (1998) and a manager.
Mbappé and Kane chasing history
The poll's pick for Golden Ball and Golden Boot was Kylian Mbappé, coming off another prolific season at Real Madrid. Harry Kane finished just behind him in the voting — which tracks, given Kane's absurd 61-goal campaign with Bayern Munich that earned him the European Golden Shoe.
Both have a genuine shot at rewriting the record books. Miroslav Klose's all-time World Cup scoring record stands at 16 goals. Lionel Messi sits on 13. Mbappé is on 12. Kane is on eight — further back, but not out of it across seven matches if he stays hot. Watching those two chase Klose's record is arguably the tournament's best subplot before a ball has been kicked.
Argentina, the reigning champions and current FIFA top-ranked side, were third in the poll. Portugal and England rounded out the top five.
Brazil's problem isn't the manager
Even Carlo Ancelotti couldn't save Brazil's reputation among the economists. Nearly a third named the Seleção as the most likely big name to disappoint — a damning assessment for a five-time winner still rebuilding confidence after a quarter-final exit to Croatia in 2022. England and Germany followed as the next most-doubted heavyweights.
On the other end of the scale, Norway — carrying Erling Haaland — was picked by 21% as the most likely underdog to cause chaos, with Japan at 15%.
The breakout star vote was scattered across 46 names, but Spain's Lamine Yamal, 18 years old and already playing like he belongs at a World Cup, topped that list. The Golden Glove race looks like a three-way contest between France's Mike Maignan, Argentina's Emiliano Martínez, and Spain's Unai Simón.
As for methodology: 73% of respondents went with gut feel, 20% used data and models, and 8% just backed whoever they wanted to win. Shannon Bold from the Bureau of Economic Research in Johannesburg summed it up best — "the forecast was adjusted with a heavy dose of gut feel." Over 60% of the economists admitted that 2026 inflation is still easier to predict than the World Cup. After everything the last four years has thrown at forecasters, that's not exactly a high bar.
