{"slug": "who-will-win-the-world-cup-mathematician-s-11-models-predict-four-possible-but", "title": "Who will win the World Cup? Mathematician's 11 models predict four possible champions (but NOT England!)", "summary": "A mathematician created 11 AI models to predict the World Cup winner, with Spain, Argentina, France, and the Netherlands each being chosen by at least one model, but none picked England. Averaged across models, Spain has a 20% chance, while England has only a 9% chance. The researcher warns that even favorites are more likely to lose than win due to tournament variance.", "body_md": "# Who will win the World Cup? Mathematician's 11 models predict four possible champions (but NOT England!)\n\n**READ MORE:**[Supercomputer predicts England's World Cup journey](/sciencetech/article-15903701/England-World-Cup-supercomputer-predicts.html)**See more Daily Mail on Google -**[save us as a Preferred Source](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=dailymail.com)\n\nEngland's World Cup journey begins tonight, but a mathematician warns that fans shouldn't get their hopes up.\n\nDr Ari Joury, a particle physicist and founder of [AI](/sciencetech/ai/index.html) firm Wangari, created 11 different models to predict who will win this year's tournament.\n\nThese digital tipsters crowned four different champions between them, but not a single one picked England.\n\nSeven models backed [Spain](/news/spain/index.html), two singled out Argentina as the likeliest winner, while [France](/news/france/index.html) and the [Netherlands](/news/the-netherlands/index.html) were each the favourite of one prediction system.\n\nAveraged across all the models, Dr Joury predicts that the Three Lions have a scant nine per cent chance of becoming champions.\n\nBut this doesn't necessarily mean it's time to give up on England just yet.\n\nDr Joury told the Daily Mail: 'A low probability isn't a prediction that England will fail – a small figure reflects a crowded field, not a doomed campaign.\n\n'With nearly 50 teams and six or seven genuine contenders, the title chance is split many ways, so even an excellent side typically lands in single digits.'\n\nAveraged across the models, Spain has a 20 per cent chance of victory. England, meanwhile, has just a nine per cent win probability\n\nHowever, the modelling suggests Spain still looks likely to come out on top.\n\nAveraged across the models, Spain has a 20 per cent win probability, followed by France and Argentina at 14 per cent, and the Netherlands with 10 per cent.\n\nImpressively, five distinct models gave Spain a greater than one–in–four chance of lifting the trophy this year – with one giving them nearly one–in–three odds.\n\nEven when models backed other teams such as France or Argentina, they weren't predicted to win with nearly as much confidence.\n\nFor example, the system that picked France as the most likely winner with the highest probability only assigned the French team a 12 per cent chance of victory.\n\nHowever, Dr Joury says that even a dominant Spanish side won't be able to rest on its laurels.\n\nHe says: 'In my pre–tournament forecast, Spain did come out as the most likely single winner – but \"most likely\" still meant a minority chance, not a safe bet.'\n\nWhile Spain starts 'marginally ahead of a very tight pack', the intense competition at this year's World Cup means even the favourites are 'more likely to not win than to win'.\n\nA mathematician has used 11 models to predict who will win the World Cup. These predictions crown four champions, but none pick England\n\nDr Joury says: 'Tournament football is high–variance: it comes down to a handful of one–off knockout games where a single moment swings everything.'\n\nAlthough it might seem more chaotic, Dr Joury chose to use multiple different models in order to balance out the biases and quirks of each predictive method.\n\nHe says: 'A single model hands you a single answer and no sense of how much it hinges on the dozens of choices buried inside it: which rating system, which goal distribution, which learning algorithm.'\n\nEven when predicting the results of a single game, clear favourites Spain versus underdogs Morocco, every model returned a different result.\n\nDr Joury found that Spain's chances of winning that match ranged from a dominant 69 per cent down to just 25 per cent, with one system claiming that a draw was most likely.\n\nThis is a reflection of underlying biases in predictive models that aren't often apparent unless they are compared.\n\nFor example, some systems look at a team's current match form while others only look at their results in last year's matches.\n\nLikewise, some try to predict the goal difference, while a few calculate the match results directly – resulting in very different outcomes in close games.\n\nSeven mathematical models suggested that Spain would be the overall winner, two backed Argentina, while France and the Netherlands each received support from one\n\nExperts say England's low odds represent a tight competition, not a 'doomed campaign'. Pictured: Ollie Watkins of England shoots during a training session ahead of the first game against Croatia\n\n'No single model captures everything, and every model is wrong in its own way,' explains Dr Joury.\n\n'Combining several means their individual errors tend to cancel out rather than compound, so the blended result is steadier and less hostage to any one method's blind spots.'\n\nThis comes after researchers from the University of Liverpool used a world–class supercomputer[ to chart England's probable journey through the tournament](/sciencetech/article-15903701/England-World-Cup-supercomputer-predicts.html).\n\nThe researchers ran 1,000 simulations of matches from the group stages to the final, capturing everything from player ability to playing conditions, weather and altitude.\n\nThey found that the most likely outcome was a final between England and Spain, with the Spanish side ultimately proving victorious.\n\nTheir results gave England a 29 per cent chance of reaching the final, and a 17 per cent chance of winning the whole thing.\n\nSpain, meanwhile, remained favourites, with a 26 per cent chance of victory.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/who-will-win-the-world-cup-mathematician-s-11-models-predict-four-possible-but", "canonical_source": "https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/article-15907005/Mathematician-predicts-World-Cup-winner.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490", "published_at": "2026-06-17 11:44:17+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-17 11:59:17.094977+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "machine-learning", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Dr Ari Joury", "Wangari", "Spain", "Argentina", "France", "Netherlands", "England", "Daily Mail"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/who-will-win-the-world-cup-mathematician-s-11-models-predict-four-possible-but", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/who-will-win-the-world-cup-mathematician-s-11-models-predict-four-possible-but.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/who-will-win-the-world-cup-mathematician-s-11-models-predict-four-possible-but.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/who-will-win-the-world-cup-mathematician-s-11-models-predict-four-possible-but.jsonld"}}