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The World Cup is here and it's time to predict how the biggest tournament in football history will go down. This is 48 to1 presented by Heineken. From fans to friends, my name is Joseph Kasharo and I've got my friends with me here today. That's Chan Lucani. That's Michael Chandler. A reminder, we're going to be here for the entire tournament over the next six weeks from the beginning to the end when there's only one team left standing. So fellas, let's get right into it. John Luca, who will be that last team standing and who will they beat to get there? Well, first of all, let's see if we're all friends after we record this and uh we rip each other's predictions.
I can't believe I'm saying this and now it's going to be on camera, so I can't take it back. It's coming home. I'm going to pick England to beat Spain in the World Cup final to win the title for the first time since 1966. It feels wrong just saying it already. It sounds wrong. Uh it sounds wrong. I understand the concerns about England squad, the omissions, Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Trent Alexander Arnold. I would have even brought Adam Wharton. It's a lot of creativity to leave at home. You don't have to be great to win the World Cup. If we go back through history, I would actually argue that historical precedence says it's better off if you kind of get lucky. If you don't try to play swashbuckling attacking football, like Argentina four
years ago, lost to Saudi Arabia, almost blew it against the Netherlands in a shootout, won the World Cup. France in 2018, like played with the handbrake on the whole time, won the World Cup. Uh Spain in 2010, all their knockout games, one nil. They only scored eight goals, I believe, the entire tournament or something. Right. So, Italy in 06, how did they win? They conceded two goals. An own goal and a penalty, by the way. They were amazing defensively. That's how you win tournaments. Yeah, England are boring. They're boring to watch. It's pretty um attritional football under Thomas Tuke, similar to what it was under Gareth Southgate.
That's fine. Be good defensively. England's good defensively. They give up very few chances. They give up even fewer goals. You need greers in the key moments. Bellingham, Sacka, Declan Rice, these guys. You need some luck along the way, some lucky bounces, you know. Um and then you need a guy to put the ball in the net up top. and they have Harry Kane coming off of one of the most unbelievable individual seasons we've seen in a long time. 61 goals. So, as ridiculous as it sounds, I'm gonna take England to win in a rematch of the Euro final. They get a little bit of revenge and they get their first title in a long, long time.
Fair enough. And who do you have them beating? John Luca. I have them beating Spain. Okay, my turn. Well, as you know, we are blessed with an influx of technology capable of performing human tasks. And one of those tasks is uh forecasting the results of future sporting events. However, am I going to opt for an AI tool that'll render me redundant and possibly take my job? No. I'm going to choose a less reliable predictive model. My brain, I can attest that is definitely less raw. And my brain is telling me that the winners of the 2026 World Cup will be France. And why, you may ask? I have picked France to win each of the last seven World Cups.
They have won two of them. I'm batting just shy of 300, which is a productive topofthe-art bat. Not bad. Um, and I really like this. I really like this team. Uh they're blessed with a very good attack with Kian Mbappe uh spearheading an attack with the likes of Marcus Terram uh Balandor winner Usman Dembele and Bayern Munich's Michael Oise playing in that creative attacking midfield role. There are questions at left back with Theo Hernandez or Lucas Dier. I am filling out none of the above on my Scantron card. Uh but I still think they have enough to win the tournament and Ddier Desant will join Vtorio Potozo as one of two men to manage two World Cup winners. And you've got the beating story.
Brazil. Brazil in the final. All right. Classic matchup. Well, I just think you know match of uh 98. Sure. Absolutely. And South American teams tend to perform really well in World Cups held in the Western Hemisphere. Uh they have won all three World Cups hosted on North American soil. two to Brazil and one to Argentina. Um, and they just have a really solid midfield base in Bruno Gares and Casemiro playing in front of two very good center backs in the likes of Gabriela Marinos and I think that will be enough to get to the final. It's hard to look past like just the sheer talent that France has. Nobody else has a team like that. They could field two or three teams that could make deep runs in this tournament. So, it's
really hard to look beyond that when you're just looking purely at overwhelming talent. looking to a bench that will have the likes of Ryan Cherokee, Desiree Dway, Bradley Barka, Warren, Zire Emory, your guy Adrien Rabio, who will somehow always for both of our teams. He will somehow always be on this. He could survive like nuclear fallout and line up for France in a post-apocalyptic world in like a 00100 formation. Twinkies, cockroaches, Adrien Rabio. Love it. Okay, so we got England, France, and that means I'm going three for three European team. So, we're all predicting that a European team will win on North American soil for the first
time. I'm going Spain over England in a rematch of that Euro final except the exact same except the exact same result. Unfortunately, for English supporters who I know have been waiting 60 years for a different result, but I've got the same thing as the Euro 2024 final. I've got Spain over England. And honestly, only because my bracket gave me Spain, France in the semis. Like if someone had asked me, who do you think the two best teams are? I'd say, "Oh, probably Spain and France." I can see. And because I had them matching up in the semis, one of them is going to go home. I've got Spain beating France in the semis. Then England in the final. Okay, those are our major tournament predictions in
terms of champions and finalists. But as we know, there are some big individual awards that will be handed out uh and accepted at the end of this tournament. And there will be some big stars who etch their names into history based on their performances over the next six weeks. So, let's get into those individual awards. Chandler, we can start with you this time. Who will take home the golden ball for best player of the tournament? I believe it will be Francis Killian Mbappe. I don't necessarily think he will be their best player or most influential. I think that will be Michael Oise, but uh Mbappe will still be the star man and focal point of what I think is a tournament's best attack.
It's going to have to be if they're going to win it, he's going to have to be central to it, obviously. Um, I'm going to go with Laminia Maul. I know I picked England to beat Spain in the final, but I do think, you know, Yamal sounds like he's going to be fit, so he'll play every game. I think he's going to sprinkle in one or two just incredible moments like Maisy dribbles where he goes by six or seven guys. He scores an incredible goal. Um, so I think Yamal, despite not winning the tournament, which is actually more common aside from Messi four years ago, um, you go back throughout the tournament history, it's almost like a consolation pride that FIFA gives a player from the losing finalist. It's like, hey, here you take this. You guys
didn't win what you wanted to, but we'll give you this trophy anyway. Um, so I think Yamal for the best player at the tournament. Yamal is the Conor McDavid of world football. People are saying that. It's tough. Yeah, lots of people are saying Yeah, I am. Um, well, he never a bad idea to go with the best player in the world at the moment. Uh, for a golden ball, I'm going to go with the best midfielder in the world, a teammate of all, Pedri.
I, you know, picking Spain to win the tournament. And I think everything's going to flow through Pedri in that midfield. And so I'll go with him as the golden ball. All right. There's also a golden boot to give out for the top goal scorer of the tournament. Who will that be? I got to take Harry Kane. Talked about him before in our overall prediction. If England's going to win the whole tournament, he's going to have to spearhead it. Um, you know, we were just talking about Yamal having more flashy moments like Kane will probably score some tapins, a penalty or two potentially. It's not going to be the most exciting thing to watch, but it's damn effective.
They all count. He scored 61 goals for Byron this year. Exactly. So, I think he's going to rack him up. Uh he's got a game against Panama on the group stage where he can get a couple probably. So, I have Harry Kane winning the golden boot. Killian Mbappe. You're going out on a big li going to break with tradition. I mean, look, he's entering the tournament on 12 goals, which is just four shy of Moslav Clos's alltime. It's a wild World Cup record. Um and if France is to reach the finals, they will play in eight matches. So, I suspect Mbappe can probably bang in uh nine goals to win that.
Okay, I'm going to go I guess slightly off the board, even though he's obviously one of the best, if not the best striker in the world. Erling Holland, uh I think he's like 14 to1 odds wise, but I've got Norway going to the quarters of this tournament. And I feel like if he plays enough games, he might not score a goal a game, but he just needs one game where he gets a hat-tick or something and that'll put him in the mix. So, I'm going Holland a little off the board. It's definitely in play. Now, I don't think anybody's gonna get like the Juice Fontaine 13 goals in a single tournament, the all-time record, even though there's more games, the quality has been diluted, there's more teams, so you can kind of beat up on the
bottom feeders. But even then, that still seems like an obscene total. I kind of do have a shout for a cheeky pick, and my Basque pronunciations are not very good. So, I'm going to turn to my friend John Luca. Uh, he's going to throw me under the bus here for Mikuel Orthabo from Real Associad in Spain. It's a really good like sneaky pick. Jokes aside, they have group stage games. Spain does against Cape Verie and Saudi Arabia. And Spain could get on the group stage and he could have five or six goals already. So that would be a I feel like David Moyes trying to pronounce like Basque names where he was like,
you got to get the list in there, which you did. That's why I had you do it. That's the kind of authenticity you can find here at 48 to1 from a self-proclaimed Spaniard. There you go. All right. That's our tournament predictions. Feel free to let us know who you're picking to win the tournament, to be in the final, to win the golden ball, to win the golden boot in the comments. Drop a comment about how much you disagree with our predictions uh if you like, which I'm sure have a few of those, which I'm sure you will. A reminder, this has been 48 to1 presented by Heineken from fans to friends. Don't
forget to like and subscribe. Keep on uh on tap with all of our World Cup content in the score app, on the scores YouTube page, and we'll catch you next time. Hey, hey, hey.
