Predictor & Simulator
World Cup 2026
Your champion
Not decided yet
ℹ️ How the predictions are calculated▾
Your own picks are never calculated — dragging group orders and tapping knockout winners is entirely your call. The maths below only runs when you press Auto-fill / Simulate, or for the Title odds tab.
1. Team ratings
Every team has a World Football Elo rating (≈1430–2160, from eloratings.net). It's the single input driving every simulation.
2. Group matches (simulated)
Each match's goals are drawn from a Poisson distribution whose average comes from the rating gap:
expectedGoals = 1.35 × exp((ratingA − ratingB) ÷ 250)Tables are then ranked by points → goal difference → goals scored. Upsets still happen, just less often than for the stronger side.
3. Knockout ties (win / loss)
No scoreline — a winner is drawn directly from the Elo win probability:
P(A beats B) = 1 ÷ (1 + 10^((ratingB − ratingA) ÷ 400))e.g. a 400-point gap ≈ 10-to-1 odds. The 8 best third-placed teams are taken by highest rating, then each round's winner feeds the next.
4. Title odds (Monte-Carlo)
The odds tab runs 2,000 full tournaments from scratch (groups + knockouts, ignoring your picks), then counts how often each team reaches the semi-final, final, and wins. A team showing 18% Win lifted the trophy in ~360 of the 2,000 runs. More runs → steadier numbers; re-running varies slightly because it's random sampling.