2026 World Cup squads ranked again: All 64 national teams that could still win next summer

And then there were 64 -- or 42, or 22, depending on how you want to look at it.

In addition to the three hosts, 39 other teams have officially qualified for next summer's World Cup in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. That leaves 22 teams to fight for the remaining six places: 16 UEFA sides for the four final spots from Europe, then two teams from CONCACAF, and one each from Asia, Oceania, Africa, and South America for the two spots from an intercontinental playoff.

When World Cup qualifying started in September 2023, there were 209 teams who, theoretically, could have won the World Cup. Today, only 64 teams who, theoretically, could win the World Cup remain.

And so, it's my solemn duty to rank all 64.

As I wrote in October, we're using two different inputs: "As a proxy for talent, this ranking uses the average, estimated transfer value of each player on each team's most recent roster from the site Transfermarkt. And for results, we'll use the World Football Elo Ratings -- a system that awards or subtracts points every time a team plays a game, based on the final scoreline, the location of the match, the quality of the opponent, and the competitiveness of the match."

At the close of the November international window, here is how the latest rankings shake out:

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 64. New Caledonia

There are zero players on New Caledonia's current roster who have an estimated market value.

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No, I didn't accidentally end that sentence too early. Transfermarkt has an estimated transfer value for Tenzin Dorji, a 28-year-old center back for Thimphu City FC, the second-place team in the Bhutan Premier League, but they still didn't think any of the New Caledonians were worth their time.

 63. Suriname

 62. Curacao (qualified)

 61. Qatar (qualified)

Among the 42 qualified teams, Qatar have the lowest market value and the lowest Elo rating. They also were outscored by six goals in their final 12 qualification matches. But thanks to their FIFA ranking, they might not even be in the lowest-seeded pot for December's draw.

 60. South Africa (qualified)

 59. Haiti (qualified)

 58. Cape Verde (qualified)

 57. New Zealand (qualified)

 56. Iraq

 55. Jamaica

 54. Jordan (qualified)

 53. Saudi Arabia (qualified)

 52. North Macedonia

 51. Bosnia and Herzegovina

 50. Bolivia

 49. Northern Ireland

 48. Ghana (qualified)

They rank just ahead of Qatar in the Elo ratings despite a combined market value that's more than 15 times the size of Qatar's. Amazingly, Ghana qualified for the 2025 World Cup, but managed to fail to qualify for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations. Priorities, people.

Led by Bournemouth's Antoine Semenyo and Tottenham's Mohammed Kudus, they should be able to field close to an entire starting 11 of players who play in one of Europe's Big Five leagues. Maybe that's why they've struggled so much recently? All of their players have to hop on long flights to get to games, while most of their African opponents don't have that problem. They better hope so, at least.

As of now, among all qualified nations, there's no bigger gap between talent and performance than with the Black Stars over the past couple of years.

 47. Tunisia (qualified)

 46. Romania

 45. Panama (qualified)

 44. Iran (qualified)

 43. Albania

 42. Congo DR

 41. Australia (qualified)

 40. Uzbekistan (qualified)

I, too, did not expect to find Uzbekistan this high in the rankings. But they've played regional power Iran six times over the past two years, and they drew five of those matches and won one. In fact, their only loss over the last 365 days was a 2-1 friendly against Uruguay last month. Their only other loss over the last 730 days was a 3-2 defeat to Qatar, who they later beat 3-0. Sure, Asia isn't the most competitive confederation, but they've lost only two games in two years.

They also have that classic international soccer combination: a star defender, a star attacker, a roster composed almost entirely of domestic-based players, and of course, an Italian manager. They've got Manchester City's Abdukodir Khusanov at the back, Roma's Eldor Shomurodov (on loan in Turkey) up top, and Fabio Cannavaro on the sideline. That's been enough to make them a real tough out; the Uzbekis tied South Korea for the fewest goals conceded (seven) in AFC qualifying.

 39. Egypt (qualified)

 38. Czechia

 37. Slovakia

 36. Kosovo

 35. United States (qualified)

 34. Wales

 33. South Korea (qualified)

 32. Republic of Ireland

I wish I could say something more interesting about these guys -- see: my last name; also see: the incredible last-second win against Hungary -- but the Irish play pure defensive, long-ball soccer. It's five at the back, boot it long, and if it stays up there, cross it into the box. Among the European teams on this list, no one else had less final-third possession, and only Northern Ireland attempted longer passes on average.

I'm not sure they're particularly good at this kind of soccer, either. They finished up qualifying with a negative expected goal differential, and they gave up more shots per game than any of the other European teams on this list.

If they do qualify, though, they're going to be a huge pain to play against. It's one thing when a team tries to mask a lack of defensive talent by playing a defensive style, but Ireland do actually have a bit of defensive talent: Brentford's Caoimhín Kelleher in goal, his teammate Nathan Collins at center back, and then Everton's Jake O'Brien and Ipswich's Dara O'Shea round out the core of the back five.

Unless Roma's Evan Ferguson suddenly does become the prince who was promised over the next few months, they're just not going to have enough attacking firepower to do much more than grind every match into dust.

 31. Paraguay (qualified)

 30. Poland

 29. Canada (qualified)

 28. Algeria (qualified)

 27. Ivory Coast (qualified)

 26. Uruguay (qualified)

 25. Scotland (qualified)

 24. Mexico (qualified)

 23. Austria (qualified)

 22. Japan (qualified)

 21. Ukraine

 20. Switzerland (qualified)

 19. Croatia (qualified)

Ivan Perisic and Luka Modric are still starting for this team! They're a combined 76 years old! They were already past their primes when Croatia made the World Cup final in 2018!

OK, I'll stop yelling. Even with the emergence of Josko Gvardiol as a star with Manchester City, the Croatians haven't really been able to develop a generation beyond Modric & Co. At least in the case of Modric, though, why would you? He's 40, and he ... might be the best player in Serie A?

At Gradient Sports, they assess a number of different contributions by watching everything a player does and grading it on a scale of minus-2 to plus-2. They then normalize those combined grades on a scale of 1-100. And, well, Modric has graded out as a 99.5-out-of-100 passer so far with AC Milan, while only two other players in the league are even above 90. But it's not as if he's Andrea Pirlo back there, protected by Paul Pogba and Arturo Vidal. No, he also has the sixth-highest grade in the league for ball-carrying, and he rates in the top 25 among central midfielders for his challenge grade (essentially, his on-ball defending).

Though Modric can no longer start for the absolute best club teams in the world, international soccer is a much less competitive and much less physically demanding environment. He'll almost be 41 next summer, and I still expect him to be one of the best midfielders in the competition.

 18. Morocco (qualified)

 17. Turkey

 16. Senegal (qualified)

 15. Ecuador (qualified)

 14. Colombia (qualified)

One of the most interesting things about this exercise is seeing how general consensus talent and team performance align -- and how they don't.

Sometimes you're Slovenia for most of the past 15 years: two of your best players play the same position, and it's the one position on the field where you never get subbed out. And because Slovenia had both Samir Handanovic (formerly of Inter Milan) and Atletico Madrid's Jan Oblak, two star goalkeepers, their combined market value wouldn't be a good representation of their actual on-field talent, and they would naturally look like underperformers.

Or, say, Sweden, where Arsenal's Viktor Gyökeres and Liverpool's Alexander Isak still haven't figured out how to play together.

Sometimes, though, national teams just do consistently play at a higher level than their talent suggests they should -- and, well, most of those teams are in South America. Currently, Ecuador, Colombia, and Argentina all have Elo ratings significantly better than their market-value ratings.

With Colombia and Argentina, a chunk of the explanation comes from the fact that James Rodríguez and Lionel Messi are well into their 30s and just wouldn't command big transfer fees on the open market. With Ecuador, some of it maybe comes from all of their best players being defenders or defense-oriented players, the types that are more likely to be undervalued by general consensus. South American players, in general, are also just more likely to be undervalued when compared to their European counterparts.

But even with all of those caveats, I still think that South American sides almost all get more out of their collective talent than most of the big European nations. Of the seven CONMEBOL teams on this list, six have a significantly better Elo rating than market-value rating. The only exception? Brazil, who have the fourth-most valuable squad, but currently sit seventh in the Elo ratings.

 13. Sweden

 12. Denmark

 11. Belgium (qualified)

 10. Norway (qualified)

At major tournaments, everybody's favorite dark horse almost always disappoints. I think that's because most dark horses that develop a consensus around them are the ones that have a couple of famous players who are still good, a couple of other not-as-famous players who aren't good anymore, and then a remaining roster of scrubs who everyone ignores. Soccer is closer to a weak-link sport than a strong-link game -- otherwise Norway wouldn't have missed the past two major tournaments.

Everyone is going to be on the Norway bandwagon this summer and as with most bandwagons, I would encourage you to avoid hopping on. By definition, when you become a bandwagon favorite, your actual chance of success greatly exceeds your actual chance of success.

Then again, I'm not even sure Norway can be considered a dark horse anymore. They're up to 11th in Elo, and they won every game they played in qualifying. Obviously schedules weren't equal across each group, but the Norwegians finished qualifying with the best adjusted goal differential (70% goals, 30% xG) of any team, at plus-3.0. For context, that's more than double what first-place Arsenal are doing in the Premier League right now.

What makes me less skeptical of this, too, is how simple the formula is: Erling Haaland led UEFA qualifying with 16 goals -- no one else even had double digits -- while Martin Odegaard led everyone with seven assists. They might be even better than we saw in qualifying too, as Odegaard appeared in only five of the eight matches. On top of all that, the roster around the two stars has greatly improved.

 9. Argentina (qualified)

 8. Germany (qualified)

 7. Italy

Meet the, uh, Ghana of Europe?

It's amazing how quickly this has gone south. There was talk of how Italy were revolutionizing modern soccer with their victory over England in the 2020 Euro final, and they followed that up by missing the 2022 World Cup and stinking up the joint at last summer's Euros. Now, they have to win two games in March to avoid missing their third straight World Cup.

Why are they so bad? The simplest answer is that they can't score goals. They have lots of burly, top-level defenders, and they have plenty of all-action, all-around midfielders. And while they do have a couple of decent forwards, both Moise Kean and Mateo Retegui aren't going to create anything on their own. While Italy had Federico Chiesa at his peak at Euro 2020, injuries have prevented him from ever getting back to that level, and the likes of Lorenzo Insigne and Domenico Berardi are well past their peaks. There just aren't any Italians who can create an advantage with the ball at their feet.

So, they have a ton of top-level talent, but they just don't have anything close to an attacking superstar. Even still, they should be better than what they are right now: 18th in the Elo ratings.

 6. Netherlands (qualified)

 5. Portugal (qualified)

Soccer really is an amazing game. Nearly four years ago, a 37-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo was benched at the World Cup for poor play. Portugal, then, immediately won the next game 6-1 and his replacement, Gonçalo Ramos, scored a hat trick to knock a then-high-flying Switzerland side out of the tournament.

Fast-forward to today: Ronaldo is 41 years old, and no one has learned any lessons. As long as Ronaldo isn't suspended because of the red card he picked up in last week's loss to Ireland, he'll be starting for Portugal in the opening game of the World Cup.

 4. Brazil (qualified)

 3. Spain (qualified)

 2. France (qualified)

 1. England (qualified)

This is a team that, presumably, will have Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka, Cole Palmer, Phil Foden and Trent Alexander-Arnold on the roster next summer. This is also a team that gave up zero -- zero! -- goals across eight qualifying matches. They gave up fewer than five shots per game and they held their opponents to the lowest shot quality (0.05 xG/shot) of any team in UEFA qualification.

I don't want to get out over my skis, but this was basically the perfect soccer team during qualification. Not only did England concede nothing, but they also pressed more aggressively than all but the two teams you'd expect to press the most: Austria and Germany. And then they controlled an absolutely absurd 88% of the final-third possession in their matches. They almost never crossed the ball and managed to complete more through balls than anyone else and created more cut-backs than all but one other side.

Granted, no one in their group ranked higher than 30th in the Elo ratings (Serbia), but if Thomas Tuchel can get this dominant-for-a-half-decade defense also chopping up sitting-deep defenses next summer, then no one else stands a chance.