WC 2026 · Forecasting Oxford Football Forecasting

France is the clear favourite, winning Group I56% of the time. France (95%) and Norway (88%) are the likeliest to advance; Senegal carries the group's best third-place qualification hope (29%).

  • France UEFA
    95% adv 6.2 pts
    win56% 2nd29% 3rd-q11% GD+3.1
  • Norway UEFA
    88% adv 5.1 pts
    win30% 2nd38% 3rd-q19% GD+1.5
  • Senegal CAF
    69% adv 3.8 pts
    win13% 2nd27% 3rd-q29% GD−0.4
  • Iraq AFC
    18% adv 1.5 pts
    win1% 2nd6% 3rd-q10% GD−4.2

Fig. V4 100k sims · official tiebreakers · row sums to 100%

Group I — simulated finishing positions

🇫🇷 France France — finish 1st: 55.5% 56% France — finish 2nd: 28.8% 29% France — finish 3rd: 12.9% 13% France — finish 4th: 2.8% 3% 🇳🇴 Norway Norway — finish 1st: 30.0% 30% Norway — finish 2nd: 38.4% 38% Norway — finish 3rd: 24.7% 25% Norway — finish 4th: 6.9% 7% 🇸🇳 Senegal Senegal — finish 1st: 13.1% 13% Senegal — finish 2nd: 27.0% 27% Senegal — finish 3rd: 42.5% 43% Senegal — finish 4th: 17.4% 17% 🇮🇶 Iraq Iraq — finish 1st: 1.4% 1% Iraq — finish 2nd: 5.8% 6% Iraq — finish 3rd: 19.9% 20% Iraq — finish 4th: 72.9% 73%

Top two qualify automatically (left of the line). Third place advances only as one of the eight best third-placed teams across the twelve groups.

France owns first place (56%); below the top two the third- and fourth-place mass is where qualification is really decided.

Source · Oxford Football Forecasting model
Reading the matrix and the heatmap

Both the advancement matrix and this heatmap are tallied from the same locked 100,000-tournament simulation that produces the forecast. Each row of the heatmap sums to 100% (a team finishes somewhere); each column sums to 100% across the four teams (exactly one team takes each position). The dashed line sits between 2nd and 3rd: the top two qualify automatically, while third place advances only if it ranks among the eight best third-placed teams across the twelve groups — which is why a team's P(advance) exceeds its P(top-two) by its best-third qualification chance.