Goldman Sachs predicts Spain will win the 2026 World Cup

Goldman Sachs has turned the 2026 World Cup into another showcase for its quant culture, putting Spain at the top of its model with a 26% chance to lift the trophy in July. For a firm that sells analytical precision as much as advice, the forecast is less about soccer than about identity: Goldman keeps finding high-profile ways to prove it can model almost anything.

The bank’s economists said Spain would beat Argentina in the final, with France next at 19%, followed by Argentina at 14%, Brazil at 8% and England at 5%. The same model mapped a path in which Turkey could reach the quarterfinals before running into Spain, while Mexico would exit in the round of 16. The tournament will be held across the United States, Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19, 2026, and it will be the first men’s World Cup with 48 teams.

Goldman’s team said the forecast draws on historical match data, team rankings, Elo ratings, attacking strength, recent form and geographic factors. That mix reflects the same instinct that runs through Goldman’s broader research machine: quantify the market, score the variables, then publish the result as a signal of institutional confidence. Jan Hatzius and his colleagues said the projection fits a familiar pattern in which the World Cup has often swung back to Europe after a South American winner.

Spain makes a particularly clean choice for that kind of model-driven storytelling. It won the men’s World Cup in 2010, while Argentina enters as the reigning champion after its 2022 victory. Spain also sits at the center of Goldman’s wider economic narrative this year, with the firm describing it as Europe’s fastest-growing major economy in another outlook piece. That overlap matters inside a place like Goldman, where the strongest ideas often travel across desks: the same institution that grades sovereign risk and GDP growth is also happy to rank national teams and tournament brackets.

The bank is not alone in casting Spain as the team to beat. Opta’s supercomputer also named Spain its pre-draw favorite, pointing to squad depth, recent form and the success Spain has had since Luis de la Fuente took over. For Goldman employees, the message is as much about brand as it is about brackets. A World Cup forecast is not core banking, but it fits a familiar Goldman habit: use sophisticated models, put a number on the outcome, and let the precision itself do part of the marketing.