Brazil are favourites to win the 2022 World Cup with Gracenote's updated predictions estimating a 25% chance of the team lifting the trophy on December 18. Argentina are the main challengers with a 20% chance of winning followed by Portugal on 13%, the Netherlands and France (both on 11%), and then England, estimated to have 10% chance of winning.
Brazil and Argentina are guaranteed to meet in the semi-finals if both get past their next opponents. A repeat of the Euro 2016 final between France and Portugal is a potential semi-final on the other side of the draw.
The four most likely teams to reach the semi-finals are (in order of likelihood); Brazil, Portugal , Argentina and France. Given the odds, one to two of those teams can be expected to be surprised and not make it to the last four.
The most likely World Cup finalists are Brazil (39% chance) and Portugal (30%). Argentina have 31% chance but cannot get to the final if Brazil do. France (27%), England (25%), Netherlands (19%), Morocco (18%) and Croatia (11%) complete the possibilities. A Brazil v Portugal final leads the 16 possible World Cup finals at this stage, with a chance of 11.9% of happening.
Gracenote's World Cup bracket shows the most likely teams in each knockout phase slot. On the graphic, the most likely winners of each tie progress through to the next round, although this is obviously unrealistic. Given the odds of the four quarter-final matches, we would expect one to two of the ties to be won by the underdogs but we do not know which ones. The bracket is illustrative of one situation which could happen, but almost certainly will not.
Brazil (70%) are the big favourites to progress to the semi-finals, followed by Portugal (59%), Argentina (58%) and France (51%). The tightest second round match appears to be France v England.
Compared to our pre-tournament forecast for this stage, Croatia have replaced Spain on the left side of the bracket and Morocco are in the last eight in place of Belgium. The other six quarter-finalists were all correctly forecast in the places they occupy in the bracket in our pre-tournament predictions.
Morocco is the only really big surprise amongst the quarter-finalists as they were ranked 20th most likely to reach this stage before the tournament with a 16% chance of getting this far. Morocco were rated the best African team by Gracenote before the competition started. Croatia were the 12th most likely team to reach the last eight in our pre-tournament predictions.
Brazil remain favourites to win World Cup 2022 and are given 25% chance of doing so, Argentina are second favourites on 20% followed by Portugal on 13%, the Netherlands and France (both on 11%), and then England, estimated to have 10% chance of winning.
There are only 16 possible World Cup finals left at this stage. The most likely is Brazil v Portugal which has just 11.9% chance of happening. It is followed by Brazil v France (10.6%), Brazil v England (9.7%) and Argentina v Portugal (9.4%). These are the only finals currently with at least a 9% chance of taking place.
