Onside.
PREMIER LEAGUE 26/27
15DAYS TO KICK-OFF
The World Cup is done. The new season is already called — all 380 matches, the final table, the fantasy edge.
WHO WINS THE PREMIER LEAGUE →BEAT OUR AI
THE TOURNAMENT IS OVER · MARKING OUR OWN HOMEWORK

We called 25 of 31 knockout ties.
We got 6 wrong.

Every prediction below was frozen in a timestamped receipt before kickoff — never recomputed after the result. That includes the ones that made us look bad. Both semi-finals went against us, and they are on this page in the same size type as the wins.

80.6%
Knockout ties called
25/31
Correct advancers
6
Misses
5
Rounds graded
ROUND BY ROUND

Where it held, and where it broke

The pattern is unmistakable: near-perfect while the field was wide, then a cliff at the semi-finals. That is what a model looks like when the remaining teams are genuinely evenly matched — and it is the honest limit of what prediction can do.

Round of 3228 Jun – 3 Jul
14/16
✓ CAN–RSA 1-0✓ BRA–JPN 2-1✗ GER–PAR 1-1 (pens 3-4)✗ NED–MAR 1-1 (pens 2-3)✓ NOR–CIV 2-1✓ FRA–SWE 3-1✓ MEX–ECU 2-0✓ ENG–COD 2-1✓ BEL–SEN 3-2 (AET)✓ USA–BIH 2-0✓ ESP–AUT 3-0✓ POR–CRO 2-1✓ SUI–ALG 2-0✓ EGY–AUS 1-1 (pens 4-2)✓ ARG–CPV 3-2 (AET)✓ COL–GHA 1-0
Round of 164 – 7 Jul
6/8
✓ MAR–CAN 3-0✓ FRA–PAR 1-0✗ BRA–NOR 0-2✓ ENG–MEX 3-2✓ ESP–POR 1-0✓ BEL–USA 4-1✓ ARG–EGY 3-2✗ COL–SUI 0-0 (pens 3-4)
Quarter-finals9 – 12 Jul
4/4
✓ FRA–MAR 2-0✓ ESP–BEL 2-1✓ ENG–NOR 2-1 (AET)✓ ARG–SUI 3-1 (AET)
Semi-finals14 – 15 Jul
0/2
✗ FRA–ESP 0-2✗ ENG–ARG 1-2
The Final19 Jul
1/1
✓ ESP–ARG 1-0 (AET)
EVERY MISS, NAMED

The 6 we got wrong

No asterisks. Four of these six went to penalties or extra time — the coin-flip end of football, where no model has an edge worth claiming.

R32 · WE CALLED GERMANY
Paraguay beat Germany
1-1 (pens 3-4)
R32 · WE CALLED NETHERLANDS
Morocco beat Netherlands
1-1 (pens 2-3)
R16 · WE CALLED BRAZIL
Norway beat Brazil
0-2
R16 · WE CALLED COLOMBIA
Switzerland beat Colombia
0-0 (pens 3-4)
SF · WE CALLED FRANCE
Spain beat France
0-2
SF · WE CALLED ENGLAND
Argentina beat England
1-2
THE FINAL · 19 JULY · METLIFE

Spain 1–0 Argentina (AET)

Ferran Torres, 106th minute, off the bench. Spain's second world title and their first since 2010. Our frozen receipt — captured on 16 July, three days before kickoff — had Spain at 50%.

We called it right, and we were not confident. 50% is a coin flip — the model named Spain but explicitly refused to claim an edge. Reporting that as a confident hit would be the kind of retro-fitted victory lap this whole receipts system exists to prevent. It was a correct call on a match we said we could not read.
THE AWARDS · CONFIRMED

Who won what

Spain swept the individual player awards — Rodri (Golden Ball), Unai Simón (Golden Glove) and Pau Cubarsí (Best Young Player). Only the Golden Boot went elsewhere, to France’s Kylian Mbappé.

Golden Ball
Rodri
Spain

Controlled the tournament from midfield as Spain won their second world title.

Full breakdown →
Golden Boot
Kylian Mbappé
France

10 goals in 8 matches — the first player ever to win the Golden Boot at two consecutive World Cups.

Full breakdown →
Golden Glove
Unai Simón
Spain

Conceded once in the entire tournament and went a record 650 consecutive minutes without conceding.

Full breakdown →
Best Young Player
Pau Cubarsí
Spain

At 19, the Barcelona centre-back anchored the champions’ defence. Only the second teenager to win it after Mbappé in 2018, and the first defender in over forty years.

Full breakdown →
FIFA Fair Play Award
Netherlands
Netherlands

Best disciplinary and fair-play record of the tournament.

GOAL OF THE TOURNAMENT
Voting still open
FIFA public vote

A Julián Álvarez strike won the quarter-finals and semi-finals round vote. FIFA has not confirmed an overall winner, so we are not calling one.

QUICK ANSWER

How accurate were Onside's World Cup 2026 predictions?

Onside correctly called 25 of 31 knockout ties at the 2026 World Cup (80.6%), grading each one against a prediction frozen in a timestamped receipt before kickoff. The model was strongest in the early rounds and weakest at the semi-final stage, where both calls were wrong — France lost to Spain and England lost to Argentina, having each been rated a 50/50 coin flip. In the final, the model favoured Spain at 50%. Spain won the 2026 World Cup, beating Argentina 1-0 after extra time in the final at MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford on 19 July 2026.
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Every 2026/27 match called, graded in public every gameweek, same receipts. Play your prediction against it from GW1 on 21 August.

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