Good Morning ☀️,

It’s Lucas here, your Chief Predictions Officer at What Are the Odds?

Heading into this year’s World Cup — a tournament where many fans were simply priced out — there were real concerns football was no longer about the fans.

Today, we’ve got proof that football still belongs to the fans. But more on that soon.

First, here’s what’s ahead.

What’s ahead in today’s edition of What Are the Odds?:

• Why the chants at this year’s World Cup prove football still belongs to the fans. 🎵

• Today’s complete match schedule. 🗓️

• Our top pick of the day. ✅

Sharing is caring: Help grow the team and show your friends you care — send them this link https://whataretheodds.io/subscribe

🇦🇺 Australia vs. Egypt 🇪🇬

• Stage: Round of 32

• Time: 14:00 ET

• Venue: Dallas Stadium

🇦🇷 Argentina vs. Cape Verde 🇨🇻

• Stage: Round of 32

• Time: 18:00 ET

• Venue: Miami Stadium

🇨🇴 Colombia vs. Ghana 🇬🇭

• Stage: Round of 32

• Time: 21:30 ET

• Venue: Kansas City Stadium

Want to get the best odds on these matches?

If there’s one thing every World Cup has, it’s a soundtrack. And it’s never the “official anthem” (sorry, IShowSpeed…). Instead, it’s usually the stuff coming out of the stands… as questionable as some of it might be.

Surprisingly, with this tournament being played in the land of “football of the hand”, with an (alleged) sex offender as president, ICE rumored to be lurking around stadiums, and half the planet’s fans priced out or denied visas, the 2026 edition has still produced a fairly interesting spread of chants, including some that might just get you a stadium ban… or maybe even a deportation.

But we’ll get to the spicier ones in a minute. Let’s start with the slightly more innocent, pure, ones.

Here, Norway’s “Viking Row” is probably the winner of the whole tournament. In part, because of its simplicity — two beats on a drum, and then thousands of fans mime pulling an oar and roar "RO!" in unison.

The backstory itself is also pretty wholesome — it was invented by an Oslo elementary-school teacher called Ole Frøystad who’s since picked up the nickname "Mr. Row Row". He spent weeks workshopping chants ahead of Norway’s first World Cup since 1998. Apparently, he built it by smashing together the crescendo of Iceland’s “Viking Clap” with a call-and-response he’d seen at a club match years earlier. His logic: "that’s exactly what the Vikings did. They rowed into battle."

Since then, it’s gone semi viral, with everyone from Erling Haaland to the Dallas police to the actual Norwegian parliament joining in.

There’s also been quite a few other wholesome chants doing the rounds this World Cup. For instance, you’ve got Argentina’s "Muchachos" — a retooled version of a La Mosca song ahead of the 2022 World Cup that opens with “I was born in Argentina, land of Diego and Lionel”, which then goes on to namecheck Maradona and Messi.

Then you’ve got Iran’s fans who, in addition to the usual “Iran, Iran, Iran” chant have used the tournament as a platform for actual dissent. They’ve been chanting "Women, Life, Freedom" along with the name of dissident former footballer Ali Karimi. Of course, not everyone in the camp agrees with this one — the more nationalist chant "Iranians with honour, Iranians with pride" is sometimes used specifically to drown out the protest song. So, in a way, we’ve kinda got a civil war of chants going on inside one fanbase.

But hey — that’s what the World Cup’s for, isn’t it? Or, maybe to be more accurate, that’s what inevitably happens when you bring a bunch of people together — not everyone’s going to agree.

And that leads us to the next round, starting with Australia’s Socceroos fans, who’ve taken it upon themselves to taunt one host nations head of state with a little earworm that goes something like this — "Aussie boys are on a bender, Donald Trump is a sex offender." And yeah, they seem to know they’re playing with fire with this one — they’ve since turned the broader tournament’s ICE-raid anxieties into a punchline about themselves.

And then there’s the English fans, who probably don’t wanna get outdone by their former prison camp. So they rolled out their own little ditty that’s probably a little rude to republish here.

But that sort of edginess should come as no surprise given it’s the English fans, who’re also well known for their “Ten German Bombers” theme song. To give a bit of background on that one, it’s a WWII throwback that both UEFA and the FA have condemned as discriminatory, with fans who sing it facing bans from competitions.

Of course, it’s easy to threaten to kick fans out when it’s just a small handful. It’s another thing entirely when the entire fanbase starts chanting it in unison. Which leads us into the next one.

Mexico’s famous “¡Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, puto!”, which isn’t really a chant and more of a single word bellowed by Mexican fans at the precise moment the opposing goalkeeper takes a goal kick. And while FIFA has repeatedly fined the Mexican federation over it across multiple tournaments, the reality is simple — there’s no realistic way to police 40,000 people yelling one syllable in perfect unison. So it really shouldn’t come as a surprise to know that it’s been making multiple appearances at this year’s World Cup.

And whether you love them or hate them, that fan defiance is maybe the most interesting thing about these chants.

As much as the powers that be might try to regulate fan behavior at a World Cup tournament where the average fan has been priced out, or simply not allowed to visit the country at all, the fans are still somehow making it their own — something one host nation’s head of state seems to have been painfully aware of.

If that’s not a sign that football still belongs to the fans, then we don’t know what is.

⚽ Argentina vs Cape Verde
🏟️ 2026 FIFA World Cup
📅 Friday 04 July; 00:00 (Europe/Paris)

• Why we’re watching: A World Cup favorite takes on one of the greatest underdog stories at this year’s tournament.

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Argentina is currently #2 in the FIFA World Rankings, and finished the group stage with 3W/0D/0L, 8 goals scored, and 1 conceded.

  • Cape Verde is currently #64 in the FIFA World Rankings, and finished the group stage with 0W/3D/0L, 2 goals scored, and 2 conceded.

  • Across all competitions, Argentina has 10 straight victories, 8 of which were won by at least a 2-goal margin.

• CXSports says: Cape Verde would have to be the underdog story of the tournament — the smallest country by population ever to reach a World Cup knockout stage, doing it on their tournament debut. And they didn’t do it by “only just scraping through” with one of those best-third-placed teams slots. They went unbeaten through Group H to finish second (the first newcomers to do so since Senegal in 2002) after drawing all three — 0-0 with Spain, 2-2 with Uruguay, and 0-0 with Saudi Arabia.
  
  However — and this is worth noting here — the entire campaign was built on defensive resilience (they conceded just two goals across three group games) rather than sheer firepower. And a big part of that defense rests on the shoulders of their now-folk hero — their 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha, who made seven saves in the Spain draw, kept two clean sheets in the group, and finished the group stage after facing 11 shots on target, of which he saved nine.
  
  As for why that’s interesting — it’s simple. Argentina (who scored 8 goals in the group stage) probably has one of the sharper offenses in the entire tournament. And they still manage to back that up with a defense that’s at least as solid as (if not better than) Cape Verde’s.
  
  Of course, that’s not to say Cape Verde doesn’t have a path to an upset. Although, that path is extremely narrow, and would hinge on them taming Messi (who’s scored 6 goals this tournament) while hoping Vozinha delivers. So if Vozinha can pull off another seven-save night and force Argentina to get impatient, this could become the sort of tie that turns on a single set-piece or a penalty shootout — exactly where a hot goalkeeper is worth his weight in gold.
  
  With that said, that might be a bit of a stretch against Argentina. While Messi has done most of the scoring in the tournament so far, it’s not like Argentina’s short on options — Lautaro Martínez and Julián Álvarez in particular. And let’s not forget that Argentina have shown the sort of clinical edge that Spain’s more one-dimensional attack lacks. So just because Cape Verde’s already held a high-profile team to a draw, that doesn’t mean they can do it again.
  
  And finally, let’s not forget Argentina’s headline stat here — 10 straight victories across all competitions with 8 of those being by at least a 2-goals. That sort of form is going to be tough to beat for anyone.
  
  So in reality, the Cape Verde’s fairytale World Cup debut probably ends tonight. Even if they manage to frustrate, Argentina only needs to be patient before they’ll eventually break through.

• Score prediction: 2-0 for Argentina

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Argentina Victory

• Odds Range: 1.09-1.17

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (No)

• Odds Range: 1.28-1.45

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today — the final day in the round of 32. Tomorrow, we’ll be back with more as the round of 16 gets underway.16 gets underway

Until then, enjoy the football… and maybe try to not earn yourself a lifetime ban if you’re going in person.