Good Morning ☀️,

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

This year’s World Cup was bigger (and better?) than ever. Now, FIFA’s talking about making it even bigger. But more on that in a moment.

First, here’s what’s ahead.

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

• Bigger is better… right? ❓

• Today’s complete match schedule. 🗓️

• Our top pick of the day. ✅

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There are no matches coming up today.

The next matches in the World Cup are tomorrow’s France vs Spain semifinal, and Wednesday’s England vs Argentina showdown.

Want to get the best odds on this match?

Well that was an anticlimax. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the expanded 48-team World Cup format that FIFA pitched as “a chance to dream” has ended in Argentina, England, France, and Spain all qualifying for the semifinals.

And in case you’re wondering why this isn’t a surprise, it’s because 4 of the top 5 favorites to win this year’s tournaments are through to the semifinals now that all the underdog hopefuls have been decisively eliminated. (Although, there are some questions over just how decisive England’s defeat of Norway was).

In any case, despite everything more or less heading towards the sort of predictable finish everyone knew was bound to happen, that hasn’t stopped Infantino from floating the idea of a 64-team format for 2030. To quote the man directly, his reasoning goes like this:

“Every nation should be allowed to dream of participating in the World Cup. You can see that the quality of the ‌‌teams is extremely high – and it’s getting higher and higher all over the world. If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate in the World Cup, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving.”

Sounds good, right? Except, as you probably know by now, we love to nitpick everything FIFA/Infantino says. So let’s do just that — nitpick. Because there’s something odd here.

Infantino says “If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate in the World Cup, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving.” But immediately before this, he says, “You can see that the quality of the ‌‌teams is extremely high – and it’s getting higher and higher all over the world.”

So Infantino basically wants to say we need to expand the World Cup to incentivize teams to improve. But he also says teams have been improving anyway. So our question to Infantino is, if teams need a 64-team World Cup format so they’re incentivized to improve, then what’s been incentivizing them in the years/decades before today? After all, doesn’t “more chances to qualify” lower the bar? And if the bar’s lower, then where exactly is the incentive to improve?

In any case, we all know this whole “chance to dream” stuff probably isn’t what’s really driving Infantino’s logic. In reality, this is probably just PR dressing over a move that’s really about expanding revenues via increased match inventory — more ticket sales, more broadcast slots, etc., etc., etc. And this isn’t exactly conspiratorial thinking given the patterns FIFA’s shown lately — between its FOMO economics, dynamic ticket pricing, “hydration” (aka “ad”) breaks, and, in its latest move, breaking up and selling off the finals pitch for parts.

The expanded tournament proposal isn’t without its critics, either. Both UEFA and CONCACAF have come out with criticism of the move. However, while some confederations have (and will) criticize any tournament expansion, not all confederations/nations share the same criticism.

In fact, it was only about a month ago that a bunch of federations banded together to come out against UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin for his comments against the expanded 48-team format. Their joint press release is available here.  One of the more interesting points in their criticism was the statement that “football does not belong to a select group of nations.” And here, they probably have a pretty decent point.

For those who aren’t in the know, World Cup qualification slots are currently unevenly distributed across confederations. And while there might be some “logic” behind it, the numbers are pretty hard to argue with. Even at this year’s edition, which significantly expanded the number of slots available to CAF nations, distribution was still very uneven on a member nation percentage basis.

To put some numbers on it, UEFA was allocated a total of 16 slots to share amongst 54 teams. Meanwhile, CAF only received 9 slots to share amongst 53 teams. Expressed in percentage terms, that means ~30% of UEFA nations qualified for this year’s World Cup, while only 17% of CAF nations were afforded the privilege.

So, at least on that front, there is an argument to be made that an expanded format is somewhat justified. Although, there is an alternative here if fair and equal access to the World Cup is the real name of the game here — redistribute qualifying slots among confederations. Although we can’t see UEFA getting on board this move either.

And that probably rules out the possibility of scaling back the tournament now the deed is done. While 32 teams does, arguably make more sense than 48 (that way we can get rid of the whole 3rd-place mess), the political fallout from removing qualifying slots would probably be far greater than any “FIFA’s just profiteering" allegations.

And that brings us to perhaps one of the more sensible reasons for expanding the World Cup to 64 teams. As The Times writer Martin Samuel argues, “Fifa sold out on making it [the World Cup] an elite competition long ago. Giving one more puff to an already bloated tournament would at least make it fairer because, at present, 48 into 32 does not go.”

So, where does this leave us?

Well, there’s clearly a bunch of for and against arguments for the move, and who’s right/wrong probably depends on who you’re inclined to side with here. All the sides in this do manage to make good points (even if some of their points are a little more shaky). And even if we lay them all out on a yellow legal pad split into pros and cons, that still doesn’t answer the question of how we weigh different priorities. After all, what’s more important — maintaining an “elite” tournament, or opening up access to more nations?

In either case, if this year’s tournament is any indication, we can probably say with moderate certainty that whatever FIFA decides, it probably won’t have any impact on the outcome.

⚽ France vs Spain
🏟️ 2026 FIFA World Cup Semifinals
📅 Tuesday 14 July; 21:00 (Europe/Paris)

• Why we’re watching: It’s the World Cup Semifinals. Duh!

• Top 3 Stats:

  • France is currently #1 in the FIFA World Rankings, and has 6W/0D/0L, 16 goals scored and 2 conceded after 6 World Cup games.

  • Spain is currently #3 in the FIFA World Rankings, and has 5W/1D/0L, 11 goals scored and 1 conceded after 6 World Cup games.

  • In the last 5 head-to-heads, France has 2 victories against Spain’s 3 for an aggregate score of France 8-10 Spain.

• CXSports says: Based on World Cup stats alone, this one looks like it’s going to be a something that resembles a chess match between two impenetrable defences. France has conceded just twice in six games, while Spain’s only conceded once.
  
  However, the head-to-head history between these two doesn’t quite support this. In fact, it pretty much says the opposite. The last two times they met in tournaments that mattered, they produced a 2-1 Spanish win at Euro 2024 and a 5-4 Spanish win in the 2025 Nations League. And that makes you wonder — do two teams who clearly know how to hurt each other suddenly forget how to do that just because they’re playing at a different tournament?
  
  We also have to throw the whole “impenetrable defenses” thing into question if we look at the calibre of teams each has faced so far in this campaign. So far, neither has run into an attack of the other’s quality — France hasn’t met a forward line remotely like Spain’s since the group stage. And Spain’s clean-sheet run was built against the likes of Portugal and Uruguay.
  
  Anyway, all that probably tells us that there’s a good chance there’s going to be goals in this game. But it doesn’t tell us much about who’s likely to come out on top. So let’s look at that.
  
  The case for France is relatively simple — they’re simply the more complete version of the same idea Spain’s floating. Their 2-0 win over Morocco was a 3.69-to-0.14 xG annihilation that probably best exposes the one gap between these teams. France carry their threat across the whole front line — Mbappé's eight goals, Dembélé's five, Olise's tournament-high six assists. Meanwhile Spain have become overly dependent on an last-minute Mikel Merino (a central midfielder) to rescue stalemated games their forwards can’t seem to finish. Lamine Yamal, the teenager who broke French hearts in 2024, has one goal all tournament and no goal contribution since the group stage. So if Spain’s route to the finals depends on Yamal rediscovering his Euro form against the best defence he’s ever faced, then Spain probably has lower chances than their unbeaten record suggests. Further, with France’s finishers in fine form, there’s probably not many reasons to think that a Spanish defense that just conceded to Belgium is the one that finally shuts them out.
  
  With that said, Spain do have Rodri and Pedri as central features of their whole mid-field control method. That means, if France’s pivot is compromised, then the most important battle on the pitch might just shift towards these two men — men who can arguably keep the ball away from Mbappé for long stretches at a time.
  
  Still, keeping the ball away from Mbappé is one thing — it’s a scenario in which Spain might France into the sort of slow, suffocating contest they've won five times already this tournament. However, even if they manage to do that, they still find themselves dependent on a last-minute Merino or the miracle of restored Yamal genius to actually decide it.
  
  As such, we’re tempted to lean towards France narrowly edging this one, so long as a fully fit French midfield is enough to deny Spain the total control their game depends on. If they can do this, then France’s attack — an attack that’s arguably firing at higher level — will probably be the deciding factor here.
  
  With that said, this is probably one of the closest calls we’ve had to make all tournament, so take all of that with a large grain of salt.

• Score prediction: 2-1 for France

Bet Option #1

• Bet: France Victory

• Odds Range: 2.06-2.42

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.49-1.70

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That’s a wrap for today. Tomorrow we’ll be back as we look ahead to the upcoming England vs Argentina match.