World Cup 2026: Paraguay, Enner Valencia, Canada and other tempting wild long shots | OneFootball

We’ve already done some semi-serious predictions for this World Cup, and semi-serious is about as serious as we ever like to get.

And even then not for too long before we lose that semi. So to speak.

So let’s do some properly mad old predictions now, yeah? Here’s the twist, though: all these mad predictions will fetch a pretty price at your friendly local neighbourhood bookmaker yet after a bit of digging and some scribbled tournament brackets and all propelled happily along by a healthy dose of delusion, we’ve successfully convinced ourselves all have every chance.

They absolutely don’t.

Paraguay to win the World Cup

Okay, hear us out. Sure, this is a big, bold, beautiful start to proceedings but some of the three-figure prices knocking about for Paraguay aren’t just fancy, they’re double fancy. Some of them start with a two!

It does need saying right off the bat that the World Cup simply does not do shock winners. It only very, very occasionally – Croatia in 2018 the clearest recent example – does shock finalists. Shock semi-finalists? Sure, those are positively encouraged.

But finalists? No. In what we might loosely call the World Cup’s modern era, after the days when your Czechoslovakias or your Hungarys and Swedens and, yes, even the Englands of this world could make it, there has been a clear closing of the ranks.

In the 14 finals from 1970 onwards, Croatia are the only interlopers in an exclusive group. Every other final has featured some combination of (West) Germany, Italy, Brazil, France, Argentina, Spain and Netherlands. One could even argue Spain are interlopers too, having made just one final compared to, say, France’s four or Argentina’s five in the last 60 years. Even Italy have been in four of the last 14 finals and they don’t even bother qualifying any more. But Spain were very clearly the best team in the world in 2010 and absolutely not a shock winner.

But there’s reason to think this World Cup will not be like previous World Cups due in some part to its enormous heft. But also that it might just be a little bit like one particular recent World Cup that did turn things upside down a little bit along the way.

A lot of our ‘logic’ is a really quite lazy but no less valid for that decision to take the 2014 World Cup in Brazil as our key reference point. Not every game in the USA/Mexico/Canada is going to be played in stifling heat, but enough of them are for it to become a significant factor in how the whole caper plays out and it’s not absurd to suggest it could end up favouring countries from the Americas over those from Europe.

We saw this in 2014. Sure, we can’t claim conditions are an overriding factor in Argentina or Brazil reaching the business end of a World Cup, but they were joined in the quarter-finals by Colombia and even a heroic Costa Rica side whose thrilling run was only halted on penalties by Netherlands.

Something similar could absolutely happen this time around for another team from CONMEBOL or CONCACAF. Ecuador are the obvious shout here. They were comfortably the next best team in qualification from South America behind holders Argentina, still finishing second in the final table despite being docked three points for some dodgepottery with Byron Castillo’s documents in the previous World Cup cycle.

If you’re eyeing a decent run for your money at a big price in the outright market, you can definitely do worse than a teak-tough Ecuador side that lost only twice in the only qualification tournament where you can truthfully say there are no easy games. And they will absolutely not be rattled by any conditions that confront them in North America.

But if we’re going big, let’s go really big. Because behind Argentina and Ecuador, there was nothing really to separate the four remaining qualifiers, who all ended up on 28 points when the music stopped.

Paraguay may have made it through from the sixth and final automatic qualification place in the table, but they had an identical 7-7-4 W-D-L record to third-placed Colombia and fourth-placed Uruguay. If you finish level on points with Brazil across 18 games of qualification to-and-fro of this toughness and intensity, you are not to be airily dismissed.

Our main reason, though, to favour Paraguay over the valid and beguiling charms of the rest of the CONMEBOL contingent at the prices available is simple. They’re in with USA, Australia and Turkey in Group D.

Goes without saying that bagging a host was the dream for all teams outside Pot One when the draw was made, but combining that good fortune with Australia – the lowest-ranked team in Pot Two – and a Turkey team returning to the World Cup after a 24-year absence (that we are bound by law to call Dark Horses) opens a huge window of opportunity for Paraguay on their own return to the top table after missing the last three tournaments.

It would be no surprise at all to see them emerge top of that group of dearth, at which point all things become possible. It’s a third-placed team next up in the last 32 before what should be the winners of Group G in the last 16. That’s most likely a Belgium side for whom the remnants of the Golden Generation no longer gleam as they once did.

After that it’s probably Spain in the quarter-final and very likely France in the semi-final, but how easy did you honestly expect everything to be for a 250/1 shot?

Enner Valencia to be top goalscorer

We stopped short of Ecuador in the outright, but let’s go back to them here and another three-figure punt on the veteran former West Ham striker to roll back the years and take top goalscorer honours.

Tricky one to weigh up now, is the top goalscorer. The addition of an extra knockout round should in theory reduce the importance of boot-filling in the group stage. On the other hand, the 48-team expansion means inevitably weaker groups where the filling of boots becomes even more likely.

We still think, on balance, and despite Kylian Mbappe’s exploits in the knockout rounds four years ago, there is still a very good chance someone can make a serious play at the Golden Boot almost entirely on the back of some good old-fashioned Oleg Salenko-style early stat-padding.

The fact Germany are Ecuador’s last game in Group E intrigues us here. There really is every chance for someone in this very good team to be feeling very good about themselves indeed by then on the back of games against Ivory Coast and Curacao.

Only two South Americans who will be at the World Cup scored more goals during qualification than Valencia. One of those is the greatest player of all time, the other is Luis Diaz in the form of his life.

Valencia has already bagged a warm-up goal since arriving in the US, and scored three goals at the 2022 World Cup despite Ecuador not making it out of their group. Only four players scored more across the whole event.

Canada to be the lowest-scoring team

We like this one very much indeed. Canada have been handed arguably the toughest challenge of the host nations after landing two UEFA qualifiers in Switzerland and Bosnia alongside Qatar.

It’s absolutely possible that Canada, a capable side who deserve respect but not a particularly thrilling or potent one, fall at the first hurdle. And it’s absolutely possible they don’t do much at all in front of goal along the way.

Switzerland conceded only two goals in six games during qualification, Bosnia only seven goals in eight. Qatar are the obvious worry here, given they shipped plenty of goals during AFC qualification. But even then it’s worth noting that in the two games they played in the final round of qualifying they conceded only once – and that a consolation goal deep into stoppage time of the second game.

As for Canada, they obviously had no qualifying games to worry about but have scored only nine goals in their last 10 internationals. All of those are friendlies, which does sound a note of caution, but it’s still a less than stellar record in front of goal against a less than stellar roll-call of opponents.

Five of those 10 games were against teams who have qualified for this World Cup, and here Canada’s record grows weaker still. Their only goals in those five games both came against Uzbekistan last week after blanks against Tunisia, Ecuador, Colombia and Australia.

Given the sheer number of groups and low-ranked teams in play here, you probably are realistically looking at zero goals just to land a tie, but Canada absolutely have a zero-goal group stage in their locker.

Portugal to beat Spain in the final

So far we’ve focused very much on things that are very unlikely to happen but not we suspect as unlikely as the prices suggest. We appreciate that’s not for everyone, but here’s a reminder that you can still get some nice-looking prices for things that feel far less speculative.

You’re looking at around 50/1, for example, for two excellent European sides – and the two perhaps best equipped to handle the conditions – to make their way to the final and for Cristiano Ronaldo to finally get his hands on the one trophy that has eluded him.

Both should win their first-round groups, which is all we need to set them down paths on opposite sides of the draw and en route to a meeting on July 19. Don’t look too closely at all the teams they’ll have to beat along the way. Obviously a lot of those teams are going to be quite good. It is a World Cup.

Brazil, Spain, France and Portugal to be the semi-finalists

And while we’re at it, let’s go for this at an even bigger price. We’re firmly here in the realm of trying to pick the Premier League top four, something infamously never successfully achieved by any of us when doing our doomed-by-October Premier League predictions each year. But tits to that, this is 66s and requires absolutely no tomfoolery at all for it all to fall into place.

Just four proper good teams to win their groups and then behave themselves in the early knockout rounds. Not too much to ask, is it?

Assuming as we must that all four take care of their group-stage responsibilities while keeping fuss at the absolute barest of minimums, our back-of-a-fag-packet simulations then require really very little dramatic to happen at all in the knockout stages.

Sure, there are potential pitfalls. There would have to be. But none that convince us to change course.

We’ve got a Portugal win over Argentina in the quarter-finals here, for instance, and Brazil seeing off Thomas Tuchel’s brave and by now very red-faced boys at the same stage. France face a treacherous Euro-centric route in our headcanon involving Sweden, Germany and Netherlands.

Spain’s looks the most straightforward route on paper in what is at this stage our exclusively paper-based version of events: Austria, Colombia, Paraguay is the knockout route we’ve come up with for them, which seems absolutely lovely to be honest.

You can laugh all you want at us working this all so pointlessly out, but truth be told we only stopped just short of building our own Alan Partridge soccermeter with all moving signposts on it. Printed both sides, thank you very much.

It obviously almost certainly won’t actually pan out this way. If it were that easy to predict we wouldn’t need to bother with the hoopla of playing the actual tournament at all. But it’s compelling when written down, isn’t it?