Ryan O’HanlonApr 1, 2026, 07:11 AM ETCloseRyan O’Hanlon is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He’s also the author of “Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics Revolution.”Follow on XMultiple Authors
play1:35Udoh slams ‘disgraceful’ decision to strip Senegal of AFCON titleColin Udoh reacts to Morocco being award the Africa Cup of Nations title by the Confederation of African Football.
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Udoh slams ‘disgraceful’ decision to strip Senegal of AFCON titleColin Udoh reacts to Morocco being award the Africa Cup of Nations title by the Confederation of African Football.
Colin Udoh reacts to Morocco being award the Africa Cup of Nations title by the Confederation of African Football.
Lionel Scaloni: The whole world wants to see Lionel Messi play at the World CupArgentina head coach Lionel Scaloni believes “the whole world” wants to see Lionel Messi play at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni believes “the whole world” wants to see Lionel Messi play at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Roberto Martínez: Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t have any retirement plansPortugal head coach Roberto Martínez believes Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t have plans to retire.
Tuchel has ‘more clarity’ on World Cup squad after latest England campThomas Tuchel says he has “more clarity” on England’s 26-man World Cup squad after disappointing results against Uruguay and Japan at Wembley.
Thomas Tuchel says he has “more clarity” on England’s 26-man World Cup squad after disappointing results against Uruguay and Japan at Wembley.
With the final window of World Cup qualification officially over, the field is set — as far as we know, at least — and now we can finally rank all of the actual participants in this summer’s FIFA World Cup.
These rankings, as always, are a simple combination of performance and talent. For performance, we’re using the World Football Elo Ratings — an opponent-, location-, and competition-adjusted ranking system for national teams. And for talent, we’re using the estimated squad values from Transfermarkt for each country’s most-recent round of callups.
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You’d think that with the expansion to 48 teams, Qatar would be the worst team to ever play at a World Cup. And by “worst” here I mean “team with the worst Elo ranking.” They’re currently the 93rd-best team in the world according to Elo, so if we doubled the size of the 2026 tournament and chose the participants based on this rating system alone, they still wouldn’t qualify.
However, there’s been one side worse than Qatar during the 32-team era: Togo, in 2006. They went 0-3, scored one goal, and allowed six. But Togo actually had a 22-year-old Emmanuel Adebayor on the roster while he was playing for Arsenal. Qatar’s best player, Akram Afif, plays for Al Sadd SC.
They’ve jumped up 38 spots in the Elo ratings over the past year, while no one in this summer’s field has improved by more than 13 places. Of course, the leap from 128 to 90 is a little easier than a move from 90 to 52.
Jordan have the least-valuable squad in the tournament: a combined value of €15.98 million, most of which comes from Rennes winger Musa Al-Taamari. For comparison, there are 10 players on the USMNT’s most recent squad with an estimated transfer value worth more than Jordan’s entire team.
So, why so high, then? They’re one of the biggest overachievers in the field. Most notably, in qualifying, they beat South Korea, 3-0, in Jordan, and then drew them again, 1-1, in Suwon.
It feels worth pointing this out, provided everyone who qualified for this tournament actually plays in this tournament: If Iran finish second in their group and the U.S. finish second in their group, they will play each other in the round of 32.
They have a bunch of players you know and perhaps love, but each passing game seems to suggest that this team just really isn’t that good. Their Elo rating is 82nd, and they just got waxed by Austria, 5-1, in a pre-tournament friendly, and followed that up with a 2-1 loss to Germany.
Australia were probably the weakest team in the second pot of the draw, so landing in their group was a boon for the USMNT. But that doesn’t mean that the match against the Socceroos will be a guaranteed victory or anything like that.
Although there’s no superstar on the roster, most of this team play in Europe, and if not, they’re MLS guys or players from the Australian A-League.
Alphonso Davies’s hamstring injury isn’t as bad as it looked, and he should be back on the field in a matter of days and back with the Canada squad for the World Cup. That’ll boost them up these ratings, too.
But what a strange career he’s had so far. I don’t think anyone saw his move from the Vancouver Whitecaps to Bayern Munich as a slam dunk, and then he was starting for Bayern as they won the Champions League just two years later.
Except, 2019-20 remains the high point for Davies. He played 3,400 minutes across all competitions — a number he hasn’t reached since — and he’s only broken 3,000 one other time.
You could look at all of that and bemoan the lost potential — only to realize that Davies is still only 25 years old! His prime has just begun. Hopefully we all get to see him this summer, in full flight.
They’ve been the best team in CONCACAF for the past two years, even though the USMNT and maybe even Canada have better high-end talent. Both of those teams have higher upsides and much lower downsides.
We’ll see if it can actually happen in the summer heat of North America, but the founder of the Red Bull way, Ralf Ragnick, has Austria playing full-on Red Bull ball.
Given that friendlies are included here, you can take these numbers with a hunk of skepticism, but Austria have allowed their opponents to complete just 73.8% of their matches since the end of Euro 2024. That’s the lowest mark of anyone in the field — including all of the teams that play on continents other than Europe, where pass-completion rates are significantly higher on average.
I would have written this, no matter what happened over the past two matches for the U.S. men’s national team. So, please consider the following:
• In 2022, Argentina won their final three matches before the World Cup by a combined 11-0 scoreline, but then they lost their first game of the tournament to Saudi Arabia. They went onto win the World Cup.
• In 2018, France lost, 3-2, to Colombia in the March friendly window, and then in their final match before the tournament, they tied 1-1 with a team that failed to qualify for the World Cup and didn’t even have a full-time manager. They went onto win the World Cup.
• In 2014, Germany tied Poland and Cameroon in their final two matches before the tournament started. They went onto win the World Cup.
• In 2010, Spain dominated the friendly slate, but then lost their first game of the tournament. They went onto win the World Cup.
The past four World Cup winners either scuffled through pre-tournament friendlies or were in a full-blown crisis after the first game of the tournament. Oh, and that team that France tied before winning it all in 2018? It was the USMNT.
Pochettino committed to USMNT with ‘full focus’ on World Cup
Somehow, this train is still going. They have the 24th-most valuable team in the tournament, and yet they’re currently inside the top 10 of the Elo Ratings. Luka Modric isn’t just still playing professional soccer; he’s still playing professional soccer at an incredibly high level.
Remember when he won the Ballon d’Or and we all sort of agreed it was a career-achievement award? That was eight years ago!
They’re fifth in the Elo ratings right now, and that means they’re tied with Portugal. They probably get dinged too much by this rating structure, but there’s a reason why their pre-tournament odds — right around 12th-favorites to win the tournament — don’t match up with a much higher level of play over the past couple years. And that’s because they only really have one true star in Bayern Munich’s Luis Díaz.
Friendlies, again, are imperfect pieces of information — at best — but Colombia’s struggles against Croatia and France in the most recent window hinted at a potential ceiling for this group of players.
Congratulations to Morocco, who won the Africa Cup of Nations despite losing the final of the Africa Cup of Nations, 1-0.
I don’t think teamwide emotional factors have much predictive power. I don’t doubt teams can rally against a collective cause and reach a higher level of performance by doing so, but I do doubt that we can identify those causes in advance.
Senegal were already really good and really talented, and now they’re going to have a big ol’ chip on their shoulders.
Udoh slams ‘disgraceful’ decision to strip Senegal of AFCON title
Given the USMNT’s performance against them last week, it’s worth repeating: this is not your slightly younger self’s Belgium. The Golden Generation of Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard is all but gone — or deep into its 30’s — and this team hasn’t won a significant match in a major tournament since they took down Portugal in the round of 16 at the Euro … in 2021.