Favourites in Trouble: The 2026 Contenders Who Fell

The verdict is brutal for the pre-tournament favourites: of the leading contenders, only Spain (16% title odds) and Argentina (12%) reached the final, which finished 0-0. Every other fancied side is out, from Uruguay's group-stage flop to France's fourth-place finish, with Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and England all falling somewhere along the road.

It amounts to one of the harshest cullings of elite teams in living memory. Nine of the eleven sides priced at 3% or shorter before a ball was kicked failed to reach the final. Some went out with a whimper in the group stage, others were caught cold in penalty shootouts, and a few limped to the semi-finals before running out of road. The common thread was that pedigree and price counted for very little once the knockouts began.

This is the story of the favourites in trouble: who struggled, who fell, and why. We rank them by how highly they were rated, trace the manner of each exit, and pick out the warning signs that were visible long before the giants were sent home. Only two of the pre-tournament heavyweights kept their nerve, and they are dealt with last.

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Which favourites were backed hardest, and how far did they get?

Before the tournament, the market had a clear pecking order behind Spain: France (12%, FIFA #1), Brazil (11%, FIFA #6) and England (10%, FIFA #4) headed the chasing pack, with Germany (8%), Portugal (7%) and the Netherlands (6%) close behind. Uruguay (4%) and Belgium (3%) rounded out the group of genuine contenders. Not one of them reached the final.

The chart below shows just how much talent and expectation was eliminated. Between them, these eight sides carried 61 percentage points of pre-tournament title probability, and every single point of it was wiped off the board before the last day. The scale of that wipeout is the real headline of World Cup 2026: the tournament did not merely produce a couple of upsets, it dismantled almost the entire favourites list.

The fates were wildly different. France went deepest, reaching the semi-finals before finishing fourth. Brazil, the second-most-backed of the fallers, went out in the round of 16. England lost their semi-final and took third. Germany and the Netherlands were gone by the round of 32, while Uruguay never survived their group. Money and ranking, in other words, offered almost no protection once the single-elimination format bit.

Which favourites crashed out earliest?

Uruguay were the first elite name to fall, and they never even made the knockouts. Bielsa's Celeste, rated FIFA #17 and given 4% to lift the trophy, finished third in Group H with a meagre two points and a minus-one goal difference, trailing both Spain and debutants Cape Verde. For a side built on intensity and a proud tournament heritage, a group-stage exit was a bleak return and the earliest sign that reputations would count for nothing.

The next two casualties were arguably more painful because they came so soon after safe passage. Germany, at 8% and FIFA #10, topped Group E but lasted just one knockout game, drawing 1-1 with Paraguay in the round of 32 and losing 4-3 on penalties. The Netherlands, priced at 6% and ranked seventh, suffered an almost identical fate on the same weekend: 1-1 with Morocco, then beaten 3-2 in the shootout. Two of Europe's most decorated sides were gone before the last 16.

These early exits set the tone. Winning a group counted for little if a team could not deliver in a one-off knockout, and the penalty spot proved the great leveller. Germany and the Netherlands had both looked functional in the group phase, yet neither could find the killer edge when the format turned unforgiving. By the time the round of 16 arrived, three of the top eight favourites had already been eliminated.

How did Brazil's title bid unravel?

Brazil were the biggest name to fall short of the quarter-finals, and their exit is the defining shock among the favourites. Ancelotti's Selecao arrived as the CONMEBOL standard-bearers, ranked FIFA #6 and rated an 11% chance of a sixth star. They did their job in the group stage, winning Group C with seven points and a plus-six goal difference, edging Morocco on goal difference to top a lopsided pool.

The round of 32 offered a further glimpse of the old swagger as Brazil saw off Japan 2-1. Then came Norway. Haaland's side, who had already stunned Ivory Coast en route to the last 16, produced the tournament's signature giant-killing to win 2-1 and send the five-time champions home. Vinicius Junior finished with four goals to his name, but Brazil's attack could not rescue a night when the defence was found wanting.

For a nation that measures every campaign against the trophy, a round-of-16 exit was a genuine failure and the harshest possible verdict on their pre-tournament billing. Brazil had the second-shortest title odds of any side that fell, yet they lasted just two knockout matches. Their collapse, more than any other, illustrated how a talented favourite can be undone by a single well-drilled opponent on the wrong evening.

France and England: deep runs that still ended in tears

Two favourites did reach the semi-finals, and both left empty-handed. France, the world's number one side and 12% shots for the title, looked the part until they ran into Spain in the last four and were beaten 0-2. The sting did not end there: in the third-place playoff they were pulled into a chaotic 6-4 defeat by England, conceding six goals to finish a deflating fourth. That Kylian Mbappe topped the scoring charts with 10 goals and Ousmane Dembele added six made the shortfall all the more galling.

England, under Tuchel and rated 10% before the tournament, went one better on the day but still fell agonisingly short of the final. After topping Group L they ground through the bracket, edging Norway in the quarter-finals before losing their semi-final 1-2 to Argentina. Jude Bellingham (seven goals) and Harry Kane (six) gave them firepower, and victory in that wild third-place playoff at least salvaged a medal, but a nation chasing its first major men's title since 1966 will view another semi-final as unfinished business.

Both cases underline a subtler kind of trouble. France and England were not embarrassed in the manner of Brazil or Uruguay; they simply hit a ceiling against the two teams that proved a level above. For sides carrying such expectation, reaching the final four and still going home without the prize counts as a serious disappointment, however respectable the run looked on paper.

The warning signs the favourites showed before falling

Several of the fallen giants flashed distress signals long before their eliminations. Portugal, at 7% and FIFA #5 in what was billed as Ronaldo's likely farewell, could only finish second in Group K behind Colombia. They recovered to beat Croatia 2-1 in the round of 32, but a 0-1 defeat to Spain in the last 16 confirmed that a side settling for runner-up in its group had not truly found top gear.

Belgium offered a similar tale of a favourite living dangerously. Winning Group G with just five points was a modest return for a 3% contender, and although they rallied impressively to hammer the United States 4-1 in the last 16, the quarter-final brought a 2-1 defeat to Spain. Germany's group win, too, came with only six points and a wafer-thin edge over Ivory Coast, a fragility that duly resurfaced in their round-of-32 shootout loss.

The pattern is instructive. The favourites who scraped through their groups (Portugal second, Belgium and Germany on narrow points hauls) tended to be the ones caught out once the margins tightened. Only the sides that dominated their pools carried genuine momentum into the knockouts. For all the pre-tournament noise about squad depth and star names, the group-stage numbers quietly foreshadowed who was built to last and who was already in trouble.

Which favourites avoided the trouble?

Just two of the heavyweights kept their footing all the way to the final. Spain, the Euro 2024 winners rated FIFA #2 and a tournament-best 16% for the title, were the model of consistency: they topped Group H, then knocked out Austria (3-0), Portugal (0-1), Belgium (2-1) and France (0-2) without ever looking rattled. Where the other favourites cracked, Spain simply kept winning.

Argentina, the reigning champions at FIFA #3 and 12%, matched them stride for stride. They swept Group J with a maximum nine points, then edged past Cape Verde, saw off Egypt 3-2, survived Switzerland in the quarter-finals and beat England 2-1 in the semi. Lionel Messi's eight goals dragged them through a series of tight contests that might have finished any of the fallen favourites.

The final finished 0-0, a fitting stalemate between the only two contenders who never truly wobbled. Their survival throws the wreckage around them into sharp relief: of the eleven sides fancied before kick-off, nine are out, undone by penalties, shock defeats and their own group-stage warning signs. World Cup 2026 will be remembered as the tournament that put almost every favourite in trouble, and left only Spain and Argentina standing.