WC 2026 · Forecasting Oxford Football Forecasting
🇨🇭

Switzerland

UEFA Group B
1.7% Champion probability ±0.04 MC-SE
Coach
Murat Yakin home · Swiss
Elo (model)
1,891 world 19th
Squad value
€336M
Power → Reality
16th 15th +0.19 pp · neutral draw

Fig. D1 Fixture-aware · 100k sims

Switzerland — stage progression

Round of 32: 96.24% (95% MC 96.12%–96.35%; MC-SE ±0.06 pts) Round of 32 reach 96.2% ±0.06 Round of 16: 60.57% (95% MC 60.26%–60.87%; MC-SE ±0.15 pts) Round of 16 reach 60.6% ±0.15 Quarter-final: 27.76% (95% MC 27.48%–28.03%; MC-SE ±0.14 pts) Quarter-final reach 27.8% ±0.14 Semi-final: 11.41% (95% MC 11.21%–11.61%; MC-SE ±0.10 pts) Semi-final reach 11.4% ±0.10 Final: 4.62% (95% MC 4.49%–4.75%; MC-SE ±0.07 pts) Final reach 4.6% ±0.07 Champion: 1.72% (95% MC 1.64%–1.80%; MC-SE ±0.04 pts) Champion reach 1.7% ±0.04

On the central forecast, Switzerland more likely than not reaches the Round of 16 (61%). Champion probability is 1.7% ± 0.04 pts.

Source · Oxford Football Forecasting model
Group B Confed Advance (top 2) Reach R32
1🇨🇭SwitzerlandUEFA60.6%96.2%
2🇨🇦CanadaCONCACAF44.4%91.8%
3🇧🇦Bosnia and HerzegovinaUEFA19.2%60.1%
4🇶🇦QatarAFC2.8%18.2%

Source · Oxford Football Forecasting model

Bracket position Half 1 · Quadrant 3

Earliest possible meetings

No collision rows recorded for this team.

Collision = the earliest round the bracket wiring could pit Switzerland against that side. Full bracket & collision matrix →

Match 8 · 2026-06-13 · San Francisco Bay Area Stadium away
Switzerland Qatar
80.5% win 14.4% draw 5.1% loss
Most likely 2–0 (15.1%) λ 2.53–0.53 Over 2.5 59% · BTTS 38%
Match 26 · 2026-06-18 · Los Angeles Stadium home
Switzerland Bosnia and Herzegovina
62.2% win 24.2% draw 13.6% loss
Most likely 1–0 (13.9%) λ 1.78–0.71 Over 2.5 45% · BTTS 43%
Match 51 · 2026-06-24 · BC Place Vancouver home
Switzerland Canada
46% win 29.9% draw 24.1% loss
Most likely 1–1 (13.8%) λ 1.35–0.90 Over 2.5 39% · BTTS 45%
How a match forecast is built

Each pairing is scored by the ensemble (Dixon-Coles bivariate-Poisson, the Bayesian hierarchical model and the global LightGBM-Poisson, log-pooled), producing an 11×11 scoreline grid that is marginalised into win/draw/loss, expected goals (λ), over/under 2.5 and both-teams-to-score. These are the same distributions the tournament simulator consumes, oriented here to Switzerland. Knockout fixtures are not shown — their occupants are still probabilistic, so there is no single pairing to forecast yet.

Fig. D2 Relative to the 48-team median

Switzerland vs the field

Elo rating: 1891 vs field median 1780 (1.06× the field) Elo rating 1891 med 1780 Recent NT form: 1.93 ppg vs field median 1.87 ppg (1.04× the field) Recent NT form 1.93 ppg med 1.87 ppg Squad value: €336M vs field median €286M (1.18× the field) Squad value €336M med €286M Squad form (global): 0.210 vs field median 0.211 (0.99× the field) Squad form (global) 0.210 med 0.211 Fitness readiness: 0.804 vs field median 0.707 (1.14× the field) Fitness readiness 0.804 med 0.707 Familiarity / chemistry: 0.006 vs field median 0.015 (0.40× the field) Familiarity / chemistry 0.006 med 0.015 Experience (mean caps): 31 vs field median 25 (1.27× the field) Experience (mean caps) 31 med 25

Read each row as a multiple of the field median: dots to the right of the dashed line are above-field, to the left below. Raw values are labelled on the right so the comparison is transparent.

Source · Oxford Football Forecasting model

Fig. D3 Bayesian projection residual g

Switzerland on the decoupling axis

aligned (0) ← record > squad price squad valued > record →

g = +0.21 ± 0.05: the squad is valued above its record — the transfer market rates this side above what its results have earned.

Source · Oxford Football Forecasting model
What g means — and its limits

g is the residual from regressing a team’s current squad market value on its history-based strength in the Bayesian hierarchical model. Positive g means the squad is valued above what the team’s record predicts; negative means the record outruns the squad’s price (the side achieves more than its market value implies). Regressed on out-of-sample success the slope is positive — squad-rich sides go a touch further — but not statistically significant at n = 3 tournaments, so treat a single team’s g as a descriptive read, not a hard prediction. The full decoupling essay →

26players
25.6mean age
31mean caps
85%in a top-5 league
24distinct clubs
2largest club bloc
# Player Pos Club League Club min Gls Caps NT gls
1Gregor KobelGKBorussia DortmundBundesliga +1.84z5,1600210
2Miro MuheimDFHamburger SVBundesliga +1.84z2,6470100
3Silvan WidmerDFMainz 05Bundesliga +1.84z2,5543605
4Nico ElvediDFBorussia MönchengladbachBundesliga +1.84z3,2372673
5Manuel AkanjiDFInter MilanSerie A +1.70z3,7132814
6Denis ZakariaMFMonacoLigue 1 +1.70z4,9598653
7Breel EmboloFWRennesLigue 1 +1.70z2,042118624
8Remo FreulerMFBolognaSerie A +1.70z3,10718811
9Johan ManzambiMFSC FreiburgBundesliga +1.84z3,6187123
10Granit Xhaka (captain)MFSunderlandPremier League +2.21z3,050114617
11Dan NdoyeFWNottingham ForestPremier League +2.21z2,0142318
12Yvon MvogoGKLorientLigue 1 +1.70z2,7900130
13Ricardo RodriguezDFReal BetisLa Liga +2.13z2,37001389
14Ardon JashariMFMilanno club data80
15Djibril SowMFSevillano club data520
16Christian FassnachtFWYoung BoysSuper League −0.07z2,75519235
17Rubén VargasFWSevillaLa Liga +2.13z1,60836111
18Eray CömertDFValenciaLa Liga +2.13z1,6392220
19Noah OkaforFWLeeds UnitedPremier League +2.21z1,9718252
20Michel AebischerMFPisaSerie A +1.70z2,9831402
21Marvin KellerGKYoung BoysSuper League −0.07z4,140010
22Fabian RiederMFFC AugsburgBundesliga +1.84z2,4046281
23Zeki AmdouniFWBurnleyPremier League +2.21z6902911
24Aurèle AmendaDFEintracht FrankfurtBundesliga +1.84z1,908070
25Luca JaquezDFVfB StuttgartBundesliga +1.84z1,628130
26Cedric IttenFWFortuna Düsseldorf2. Bundesliga +1.84z2,73516155

Source · Official squad announcements · API-Football (global club coverage). 2 of 26 players have no club season matched in API-Football — shown as “— no club data”, not imputed. Form coverage for this squad: 92%.

Diaspora in the hosts

70,167

8.0 per 1,000 of home population

Host-language familiarity

Shared

primary language French · spoken in a host

Climate adaptation gap

−1.9°C

home-vs-venue heat differential

Venue extremes

29°C

peak heat index · altitude up to 45 m

Travel

8h

max time-zone shift · nearest venue 5,998 km

Source · UN DESA international migrant stock · US Census Bureau · Open-Meteo & venue records

Fig. D4 eloratings.net method · year-end values

Switzerland — Elo since 1950

1956 world #19
Switzerland Qualified-field median

Switzerland ends the series at 1956 Elo, the world’s 19th-ranked side — above the qualified-field median.

Source · eloratings.net
Which Elo is this?

This line is the public eloratings.net series (year-end ratings), which terminates exactly at the current rating and world rank shown on the marker. It is a different number from the Elo shown in the header band (a panel-normalised rating used inside the forecast); the two are ~0.99 correlated but on different scales. We keep them distinct rather than blend them.

92% Squad club-form coverage Share of this squad with a matched club season feeding the global form layer.
92% Fitness-readiness coverage Where below 100%, part of the fitness signal is imputed by the de-biasing layer.
n = 3 Out-of-sample tournaments The model is validated on three held-out World Cups; it matches the market, it does not beat it.

Validated on n=3 held-out tournaments; coverage below 1.0 means part of this squad's club-form/fitness is imputed (the global de-biasing layer). For Switzerland, 2 of 26 players are shown as “— no club data”. Full validation, calibration & conformal coverage →