World Cup 2026 · Full time

Spain are champions — and the model named both finalists.

Before a ball was kicked, our machine-learning model — Poisson (Dixon-Coles) + Elo, trained on 150 years of football and a million Monte Carlo simulations — had Spain in its top two, and named the exact four semi-finalists and both finalists. Here's how the first 48-team World Cup played out, and how every blind prediction held up.

🎯 Top two → the final 🥇 4 of 4 semi-finalists 🏆 Champion in its top two
🏆 Explore the Tournament Review — the champion, the verdict & the full story →
🏁 FINAL

🏁 Final dashboard

The full picture at full time — every team, the complete bracket, the Golden Boot race and a head-to-head Match Lab.

Open the dashboard →
🔮 BLIND

🔮 Pre-tournament forecast

The model's blind call from before a ball was kicked — trained with zero knowledge of any 2026 result.

Open the forecast →
🎮 Beat the Machine — the final leaderboard & Hall of champions → ⚖️ Predicted vs reality — who beat the odds, who fell short → 𝕏 Follow @WorldCupML2026
🏆 Tournament Review🧭 Team journeys📊 By the numbers 🎯 Report card🆚 Match Lab🗺️ Full bracket 👟 Golden Boot🎲 Roll a tournament

Data-driven model, just for fun. ⚽ Data: 150 years of international results (martj42/international_results).