At every tournament, in every competition, there is always a favourite to win outright. Looking ahead to the big summer feature of the 2018 World Cup hosted in Russia, who are the favourites to win there? While whoever the bookmaker’s install as favourites to take the title may not necessarily influence your betting selections on the tournament, what it will do is paint a clear picture of who is expected to go out and land the title.
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World Cup 2018 favourites
For some time now, pretty much since last World Cup really, Brazil and Germany have been heading up the 2018 World Cup winner outright market. That is fully understandable and heading into this summer’s action, many punters are going to lean on one of those two favourites to get the job completed. If those two powerhouses both win their respective groups, they would stay apart until the final.
If however someone gets their script all wrong and we end up with a situation where one of them win their group and the other finishes runners run up in theirs, then that would create a spectacular situation of Brazil versus Germany round of 16 fixture. If that were to happen then it would blow the bottom half draw, incidentally where England are, wide-open. But Brazil and Germany both odds-on favourites to win their respective groups so that’s not particularly likely to happen.
No one has a richer of a World Cup history than Brazil who have won the title five times and the last title for them was in South Korea & Japan in the 2002 edition where they beat Germany 2-0 in the final. Since then though it has been European success in the last three editions of the World Cup with Germany being crowned world champions four years ago. Five of the last six World Cup final berths have been filled by European nations.
So does that send more favouritism towards reigning world champions Germany? No doubt will Brazil will be out to make a bold statement this time around after their World Cup 2014 campaign came crashing down heavily with a massive 7-1 loss against the Germans in the semifinals.
Germany and Brazil are joint 9/2 favourites at Bet365* (Betting Odds taken at 02:07 p.m. on May 31st, 2018) to win the 2018 World Cup.
Looking at the squad that Brazil will be taking with them to Russia then they certainly have the quality to make amends. Germany have finished in the top three in each of the last four editions of World Cup, while Brazil have finished in the top four in three of the last five World Cups. if Germany were to land a successful title defence then they would become just the third side ever to achieve that (Brazil and Italy) while they would draw level with Brazil with five World Cup titles.
World Cup 2018 Outright Winner Odds*
- Brazil 4/1
- Germany 9/2
- Spain 6/1
- France 13/2
- Argentina 9/1
- Belgium 11/1
- England 16/1
- Portugal 25/1
- Uruguay 28/1
- Croatia 33/1
- Colombia 40/1
- Russia 40/1
- Poland 66/1
- Switzerland 100/1
- Denmark 100/1
- Mexico 100/1
- Sweden 150/1
- Bar 200/1
* (Betting Odds taken at 11:37 p.m. on May 30th, 2018)
Visit Bet365Spain, France and Argentina
Only three other nations will be heading to Russia 2018 priced in single figures in the bet365 outright winner market. They are Spain, France and 2014 losing finalists, Argentina. So those three really make up the pack of the World Cup 2018 favourites to win and of them, France have drawn so much attention and expectation upon themselves. That is because no other squad that is heading to the tournament looks stacked as deeply with talent as that of Les Bleus.
France were runners-up the Euro 2016 and they powered their way through World Cup 2018 qualification. They are a side who no one else is going to be happy about having to try and deal with in the tournament, and that is because the French don’t look to have any department throughout their squad which has a perceivable weakness and are 6/1 odds with bet365 to win the tournament outright. France will continue to draw a lot of appeal.
Spain are trading at the same price as France to win the tournament outright and the Red Fury look as if they are found their way back to the top of their game. World Cup 2018 qualification was a breeze for them, and the Spaniards went unbeaten all away from their Euro 2016 exit right through to the 2018 March international break. They have a much better blend of experience and youth than they did in their failed title defence four years ago.
Then there is Argentina who will be looking to Lionel Messi to carry them one step further than they managed to get four years ago. Argentina lost the 2014 final in extra time against Germany but there will be question marks about them due to their lack of form through World Cup 2018 qualification, notably in front of goal. Despite all of their attacking talent that they have available the Albiceleste fail more often than not too utilise it. Four years ago they went through their for knockout stage matches scoring just twice.
Favourites dominate the World Cup 2018
So those are the World Cup 2018 favourites to win and it would be a surprise if the winner came from outside of the group of six. History is on the side of the favourites heading to the World Cup 2018 too because you only have to look back at the history of World Cup finals, and see how hard it is underdogs to even reach the final.
Since the 1970 World Cup Argentina, Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, Germany (West Germany), France and Spain are the only nations to have appeared in a World Cup final and that spans the last 12 editions of the tournament. So there is the proof that your World Cup outright winner selection may not come from outside of the leading pack at Russia 2018. In total there have only been eight different winners of the World Cup in the previous 20 editions.
