At the end of November 2022, the FIFA World Cup began in Qatar.

For the first time in the history of world football, the World Cup will actually be held in European winter time, i.e., at the height of the football season. Which of the 32 world teams has the highest chance of becoming the next world champion? As part of this short article, we will briefly talk about the most likely candidates for the title of the strongest team in the world (more detailed analytics is available on the portal https://superbets.guru/).

Bookmakers quotes for the winner of the World Cup in Qatar

To begin with, let's get acquainted with the bookmaker's quotes for the winner of the World Cup. Of course, they differ slightly in different bookmakers, but the general trend is well traced.
The top three “bookmaker” leaders are as follows, the average odds for winning and the percentage probability that corresponds to this odds are indicated in brackets:
• Brazil (5.5; 18.2%)
• France (6.5; 15.4%)
• England and Spain (8.5; 11.8%)
The “second tier” are:
• Argentina (9.5; 10.5%)
• Germany (11; 9.1%)
• Portugal (13; 7, 7%)
• Belgium and the Netherlands (15; 6.67%)
The role of “dark horses” is assigned to the following teams:
• Denmark (29; 3.4%)
• Croatia (34; 2.9%)
• Uruguay (51; 2%)< br />• Poland and Senegal (67; 1.5%)
• USA, Serbia and Switzerland (81; 1.2%)
Chances of other teams that take part in Qatar are estimated by bookmakers below one%. The clear outsiders are the teams of Costa Rica and Tunisia (301; 0.3%)

The top three

The Brazilian national team leads the top three, and it's hard to argue with that. The Selecao last became world champions in 2002. Twenty years without a championship is a long time for five-time world champions. Now Tito has a very strong, well-balanced team, whose players really want to repeat the success of their “fathers” and “grandfathers”. The Brazilians went through the qualifying round very powerfully, scoring the most goals and conceding the fewest goals. The current Brazilian national team may not be as powerful in attack as they are used to expect from South Americans, but they act very, very reliably in defense.
The current world champions are ranked second in the ranking for the title of the strongest team in Qatar. Current statistics show that in the last 70 years, none of the teams have been able to defend their title at the next World Cup. Looking at the current form of le bleu, this trend is likely to continue. Deschamps' team cannot boast of stability. Neither at EURO 2020, nor in the last Nations League, the French looked, to put it mildly, unconvincing.

The third line in the ranking of bookmakers was shared by the teams of England and Spain. Both teams performed very well at EURO 2020. In the League of Nations, the Spaniards woefully won their group and reached the final pool, while the British completely failed the summer games, never winning in six games. Moreover, the British managed to lose twice in a row to the Hungarian national team, from which they have not known defeat over the past 60 years. And, if in Hungary there were “decent” 0:1, then in England the audience was shocked – 0:4. It is unlikely that Southgate will be able to radically change something in the game of his team in a couple of months. Plus, it must be added that the British traditionally play unsuccessfully at the world championships.
The Spanish national team under the leadership of Luis Enrique gives the result, which cannot be said about her game. The Spaniards are traditionally reliable in defense, but in attack they show extremely low conversion of scoring chances.

Second tier

Of course, the current Argentina is one of the main contenders for winning gold medals in Qatar. In fact, for Messi this will be the last opportunity to become equal with the Argentine football legend in the person of Diego Maradona. Argentina has a very balanced team. It is very possible that in Qatar we will see a repeat of the final of the last Copa America, in which the Albisileste celebrated the victory.

The German national team, with the arrival of a new coach, has played with new colors, but, again, does not show high stability. It is unlikely that the Germans will fail the second World Cup in a row, but this team is unlikely to become champions either.

The Portuguese national team in the “era of Ronaldo” took part in all the world championships, but never achieved high success – reaching the first round of the playoffs at most. Ronaldo is no longer the same Ronaldo who led the team over the past years. Most likely, the Portuguese will complete their minimum program, but the maximum is reaching the playoffs.

The “golden generation” of the Belgian team did not win anything in the 10s. The most that the Belgians can boast of is the first line in the FIFA world ranking, which has now passed to Brazil. The Belgians will not have Lukaku – this is a serious “hole” for the team. It is unlikely that Martinez's team is able to surprise the world football community.

But the Netherlands team is quite capable of delivering a real surprise at this World Cup. Louis van Gaal has a fairly young, experienced and ambitious enough team. The Dutch have three times in their history stopped one step away from gold medals. Who knows, maybe a new generation of Dutch people will remove this “curse” for their national team.