World Cup tracker: What chance do England and Scotland have of winning, and how does that compare with previous tournaments?

Every World Cup is big, but this year's is quite literally bigger than ever.

There will be a record number of matches between a record number of teams, hosted by a record number of countries, whose collective land mass spans one seventh of the planet.

It's also the first time this century that both Scotland and England will be present at the same tournament. But what chance do they have at winning the trophy?

Sports analytics firm Opta make England the third favourites, using their "Supercomputer" model that estimates the predicted outcome of each match based on historical and recent performances by each team.

Scotland were 29th favourites when the tournament started, sandwiched between Australia and Ghana. They won the World Cup in one out of every 400 supercomputer simulations.

What do fans think?

Supercomputers are one way of assessing teams' chances; psychic octopuses are another, but sometimes it's best to trust the wisdom of the crowd.

England's percentage chance of winning, implied by the betting odds, is 12.5%, or a one in eight chance, slightly better than that offered by the supercomputer.

That's the same chance as England's "Golden Generation" had in 2006, when Sir David Beckham led a team to Germany that included four future England captains - Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, John Terry and Rio Ferdinand.

Only the 2010 side had a better chance of winning when the tournament started, according to the bookies.

We will talk about how England have performed against those expectations later on in this article…

As for Scotland, the bookies have them at a 250/1 shot at the moment, after being drawn in a group with five-time winners Brazil and African champions Morocco.

That effectively means they have given them a 0.4% chance of winning the tournament. Stranger things have happened, but not very often.

Every other team representing a UK nation at a World Cup since 1982 has been rated higher at the start of the tournament.

One small silver lining is that the next lowest rated of those teams - Northern Ireland in 1982 - are the only ones to have got past the first stage.

Players to look out for

For England, Harry Kane is the man.

Sky Sports Power Rankings rate him as the second-best player in the world in 2026, behind only Bayern Munich team-mate Michael Olise. Olise was born and raised in London but represents France internationally.

Scotland also have a player in the top 20 of that list.

Scott McTominay's performances for Napoli this year, as well as his heroic overhead kick against Denmark that helped send Scotland to the tournament, mean he is now rated among the world's elite.

Arsenal's £100m midfielder Declan Rice – named as vice-captain to Kane this week – is the other England player in that top 20.

Kane has scored 13 goals more than the next highest-scoring player this year across Europe's top five club leagues, cup competitions and international games.

He averages a goal every 66 minutes in 2026 so far.

Something else that might come in handy is that he has taken 11 penalties this year, scoring nine, by far the most of any player.

Spain's Mikel Oyarzabal, who scored the winner against England in the Euro 2024 final, has taken the next most – he has scored six out of seven in 2026.

Form vs fitness

Historically, much has been made of the intense English football schedule, resulting in the team's players being more physically exhausted than their opponents by the time they get to summer tournaments.

This time, only three England players – Morgan Rodgers, Declan Rice and back-up goalkeeper Dean Henderson – are among the 50 players to have played the most minutes in the last six months.

The international nature of the Premier League might even come in handy in tiring out some of England's opponents. Among the 10 players to have played the most this year are Liverpool and Arsenal defenders Virgil van Dijk (Netherlands), Gabriel (Brazil) and William Saliba (France).

As the tournament develops, we will be assessing performances and seeing who’s playing better or worse than they did for their clubs this season.

Living up to expectations

So, according to both the bookies and the experts, England's chances look fairly good. But expectations are one thing, and living up to them is another.

It's fair to say that England have not always done that.

In fact, there have only been two occasions in the last 12 World Cups where England improved on what was expected pre-tournament - Sir Gareth Southgate's first effort in 2018, and Sir Bobby Robson's swansong at Italia '90.

While England have rarely managed to perform better than expected, the eventual winners have tended to come from teams that were higher ranked anyway.

Only on two occasions since 1982 has a team with worse pre-tournament odds than England gone on to win the trophy.

On both of those occasions, Italy were the team coming from behind to win – in Spain in 1982 and in Germany in 2006, after Zinedine Zidane’s famous headbutt in the final.

That history will not be repeated this year at least – Italy failed to qualify.

Software engineering by Jesse Okuji.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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