Good Morning ☀️,

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

This week, FIFA announced that a World Cup record that’s stood since 1994 was just broken. But we’ll get to the details in a moment.

Until then, let’s take a look at what’s ahead in this week’s edition.

What’s ahead in today’s edition:

• FIFA says it broke record. But is it lying to us all? 🤥

• Today’s complete match schedule. 🗓️

• Our top pick of the day. ✅

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🇨🇿 Czechia vs. South Africa 🇿🇦

• Group: Group A

• Time: 12:00 ET

• Venue: Mercedes-Benz Stadium

• Location: Atlanta

🇨🇭 Switzerland vs. Bosnia & Herzegovina 🇧🇦

• Group: Group B

• Time: 15:00 ET

• Venue: SoFi Stadium

• Location: Inglewood, California

🇨🇦 Canada vs. Qatar 🇶🇦

• Group: Group B

• Time: 18:00 ET

• Venue: BC Place

• Location: Vancouver, British Columbia

🇲🇽 Mexico vs. South Korea 🇰🇷

• Group: Group A

• Time: 21:00 ET

• Venue: Estadio Akron

• Location: Zapopan, Mexico

Want to get the best odds on today’s matches?

This week, FIFA announced that this year’s World Cup set a daily attendance record, with a claimed 281,223 fans ‘taking their places’ on Jun 16. That’s a full 4,153 more than the previous record of 277,070, which was set during the 1994 World Cup.

If that took you by surprise, then you’re not alone. If there’s one thing the 2026 World Cup is starting to get a reputation for, it’s for large divergences between FIFA’s official attendance numbers (which are all basically claiming near-capacity attendance), and what people are seeing with their own eyes — empty seats.

If you read our June 13 edition, then you might already know about the first game that got attention here. That was the South Korea vs Czech Republic match held at Estadio Guadalajara — a stadium with a max capacity of around 46,000 people. FIFA claimed that game had 44,985 people in attendance, which is basically 98% capacity.

Of course, anyone who’s seen images from that game know that there was definitely more than 2% of the seats remaining empty. Something FIFA ended up blaming on fans who left their seats to watch from the concourse.

At first, that kinda makes sense. That is, until you remember that this World Cup isn’t the first time pictures of fans inside a stadium have been taken. And, if our collective memories are serving us well here, we’re pretty sure we’ve never seen similar images from other sold out games and events.

In any case, since we last looked at it, the whole empty seats situation has started to look like a whole lot more than a one-match event. Canada’s opening match against Bosnia was also afflicted with the same problem — official FIFA figures said one thing; the images said another.

And there’s been plenty of others, too. Qatar vs Switzerland apparently had 67,966 people packed into a 68,827 capacity stadium. But that didn’t stop the AP from reporting “empty red seats are everywhere at Levi’s Stadium.” Fortunately for FIFA, that one didn’t look quite so bad since the empty red seats basically blended in with the Swiss fans in attendance.

And then there was also the Saudi Arabia vs Uruguay match which had the same problem. But this time, probably realizing the whole “but the fans left their seats to go watch in the concourse” thing has a limit, FIFA came up with a new excuse and blamed a crash on the highway that caused fans to arrive late. Let’s see what other excuses they cook up if the problem persists.

Now, as for why this “FIFA says one thing, the pictures say another” thing keeps coming up, the real explanation will probably never come out.

The charitable explanation would be to say that this is nothing more than people opportunistically taking photos of select sections of the stadium at select moments. Presumably so they can then use them as evidence that FIFA’s ticket prices are out of control.

The least charitable explanation, however, would be to call this a FIFA PR move attempting to cover up the very thing such opportunistic photos would be trying to prove — that ticket prices are out of control.

Basically, with FIFA introducing dynamic pricing this year, the illusion of scarcity is now more important than actual scarcity. In simple terms, if FIFA can drive ticket prices high enough, they stand to make more revenue from selling fewer tickets at higher prices than more tickets at lower prices. As such, there’s probably good reason to take any ticket sale and/or attendance numbers from FIFA with a large grain of salt.

Of course, that’s not to say that this situation applies to all games. When we watched France vs Senegal (same day as FIFA claimed it broke the single-day attendance record), that crowd definitely looked a little more packed than some others (maybe French and Senegalese supporters simply don’t like watching the game from the concourse…).

With all of that said, there probably is one FIFA claim that we absolutely can trust this year — that the “current edition is on track to break all-time cumulative attendance record.”

However, our reason to trust it has nothing to do with believing in FIFA’s “official” attendance numbers. Rather, our faith in this one is simpler.

This year’s World Cup has more matches than any previous edition. So if FIFA fails to break that record, then this World Cup’s ticketing truly was a disaster.

⚽ Canada vs Qatar
🏟️ 2026 FIFA World Cup
📅 Friday 19 June; 00:00 (Europe/Paris)

• Why we’re watching: 

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Canada is currently #32 in the FIFA World Rankings.

  • Qatar is currently #49 in the FIFA World Rankings.

  • These two have only played a single head-to-head, which ended in Canada taking a 2-0 victory over Qatar.

• CXSports says: On the whole, this match really looks like it should end in a Canadian victory. For starters, Canada took a 2-0 clean sheet victory last time these two met. And their lead in to this year’s World Cup has been a whole lot cleaner, with their last 5 international friendlies ending in 2W/3D/0L and an aggregate score of 6-3, while Qatar’s last 5 international friendlies ended in 0W/2D/3L and an aggregate score of 5-9. And, on top of all that, we also have the small fact that Canada will be hosted at BC Place in Vancouver, which should give the Canadians a decent home advantage.
  
  Unfortunately, that home advantage might not count for as much as it should if Canada’s Bosnia-Herzegovina match is anything to go by. That was also held in Canada (BMO Field in Toronto). And, despite the fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina is technically inferior (#64 in the FIFA rankings), the visitors had Canada pinned for most of the match, with Cyle Larin’s late goal in the 78th minute being the only thing that saved a draw.
  
  Now add to this the fact that Qatar also managed a draw in its opener. However, this time it wasn’t a desperate draw against a lower-ranked opponent. It was a 1-1 against Switzerland — a 19th-ranked team in the FIFA rankings.
  
  In short, what we have here is a game that, based on pre-World Cup performance, should swing in Canada’s favor. However, based on World Cup performances, this one looks like it could very easily end in a tie. The case for a draw also starts looking stronger if we look a little closer at pre-World Cup performances. Here, Canada drew 6 out of its last 10 games.
  
  As for how many goals we should expect to see here, don’t expect fireworks. Neither of these teams are producing at any sort of notable rate. In their last five international games leading into this year’s tournament, Canada averaged 1.2 goals per game while Qatar only managed 1.0.
  
  As such, expect this game to go one of two ways. Our call is that a draw is more likely overall. Canada’s shown a real knack for them. And Qatar has shown it can produce them against superior sides given a little World Cup adrenaline. However, it’s also hard to ignore the fact that Canada is, in general, a superior team, so don’t write off the chance of them winning just yet.

• Score prediction: 2-1 for Canada or 1-1 Draw

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Draw

• Odds Range: 4.30-6.00

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Double Chance (Canada / Draw)

• Odds Range: 1.01-1.07

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today. But we’ll be back tomorrow with more World Cup action. So keep an eye out — there’s some great matches coming up, including USA vs. Australia, Scotland vs. Morocco, Brazil vs. Haiti, and Türkiye vs. Paraguay.

Until then, enjoy whatever games you choose to watch… even if it’s from the stadium concourse. 😉