Ever feel like you’re guessing when betting on tennis, cricket or golf? I make sense of the stats and trends so you can bet confidently and enjoy watching your bets play out.
I decided to do a sort of experiment to see how effective the FIFA rankings are in predicting results in a World Cup.
Obviously I don't know the results for the 2026 competition so I have looked at the results in the last competition (2022) based on the FIFA rankings and also those from 2010.
This is the third in a series of blogs about international football rankings, you can read the previous blog here.
World Cup Rankings
World Cup 2022 - Group Games
I took the ranking for each country that played in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar at the start of the competition and for each group game I compared these ratings for each side.
So for example in the first game when hosts Qatar took on Ecuador I made the “prediction” for an away win with Ecuador ranked 18th and Qatar ranked 32nd.
On this occasion my prediction and the FIFA ranking was correct.
As a matter of fact the first three Group games were all correct, it was game 4 USA v Wales where the rankings did not work with the game ending in a 1-1 draw.
In 48 games played in the group stage 24 went the way of the higher ranked team, (50%).
There were 10 draws so the higher ranked team failed to win those games, (21%)
Group Game 2
That leaves 14 games where the lower ranked team won, (29%).
If these lower ranked teams winning were to repeat themselves in 2026 then by backing all teams at level stakes (1 point on each selection) at around 3/1 or above would secure you a profit.
- 3/1 x 14 = + 42 Points.
- Less 34 Losers = - 34 Points
- Profit = + 8 points
You may not have been able to get 3/1 on matches where the teams were closely matched, but should be compensated by 1 or 2 outsiders winning at bigger odds.
E.G: Tunisia were 7/1 to beat France, Cameroon were 9/1 to beat Brazil.
Final Group Game
Below are the results by group for the 2022 World Cup held in Qatar.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Group G
Group H
World Cup 2010
In the 2010 World Cup the FIFA rankings pointed to the winner in 39 games from all 64 played.
On the face of it, this sounds promising.
There is a good chance I have just described a way to pick the winner in half of the games in future World Cup tournament, however, remember that the same method was wrong nearly 40% of the time.
If I had bet on all of these predictions, I would need my 39 winners to have an average odds of around 1.65 to break even on these bets.
This might sound quite low, but some games were the type you would expect to be very short.
Some of the most obvious examples were Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast all playing North Korea, Spain playing Honduras and Uruguay playing the hosts South Africa.
All of the following games ended with the higher-rated teams winning, although there were some shocks in the games between higher- and lower-rated teams. Amongst these were New Zealand's draws against Italy and Paraguay.
2010 Results
World Cup Strategy Conclusion
Around 50% of group games will go to the higher ranked teams.
Any higher ranked team above 5/4 (2.25) could be considered value (including in running).
The draw and the lower ranked team winning will happen on the other 50 % of games.
Betting In Play On Football
For the North American World Cup 2026 (USA, Canada and Mexico) there will be reams of new data available on OLBG, i for one cannot wait.
