What to know
- Canada has made it to the knockout stage of the FIFA World Cup. The team will play South Africa in its first match in Los Angeles on June 28
- Google predicts Canada will have a 58 per cent odds of winning the game, compared to 16 per cent for South Africa
- Social media users and sports analysts predict it will a tight and low-scoring game with Canada winning
- On social media, sports prediction and analytics companies see France winning in the final, followed by Argentina and Spain
- Sports pundits also place France and Spain at the top, followed by England and Brazil
Toronto, get ready to keep cheering for Canada in the FIFA World Cup’s knockout stage!
After two weeks of nail-biting competition, 32 teams have made it to the knockout round matches, which starts this Sunday at 3 p.m. ET.
The first World Cup knockout game will be played between Canada and South Africa in Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium.
Play-by-play live coverage by Now Toronto here
Canada vs South Africa, who will win?
Watching the World Cup games is only half the fun. The other half is predicting who will advance up the brackets and take home the coveted trophy.
Not invested enough to scroll through X, Reddit, and other social media sites? Google itself has a “win probability” bar at the bottom of every match. For this afternoon’s game between Canada and South Africa, the search engine heavily favours Canada, with a 58 per cent odds of winning, compared to 16 per cent for South Africa.
But here’s what the internet has to say.
Despite Canada’s 6-0 win to Qatar during the team’s group stage game, fans on social media don’t think either Canada or South Africa will have a particularly big advantage.
On X, comments under this tweet predicting who would win see the score sitting at 1-2 or 2-1 for either team. One person wrote, “Not sure South Africa are getting out of this one so it’s a 1-3 score line.”
Sports betting website Covers also sees South Africa as the underdogs in the match, stating, “lack the overall quality Canada possess across the pitch, particularly in midfield and the attacking third.”
Seasoned soccer analyst and sports better Martin Green believes Canada will take the win, but will score 2.5 points or fewer, as South Africa has yet to score more than one goal in any match.
Play-by-play live coverage by Now Toronto here
Who will take the trophy home?
On X, several accounts have already made their predictions for the last 16, quarterfinals, semifinals, and final matches. Kalshi Sports, a prediction market platform, sees France winning the trophy, with a 24.5 per cent probability. Behind France are Argentina, Spain, England, Portugal, and Brazil.
Opta, a British sports analytics company, also favours France, predicting a 18.7 per cent chance of taking the trophy. Its next five top teams are Argentina, Spain, England, Brazil, and the Netherlands.
On a more casual note, one user predicts in the r/soccer subreddit that the United States will beat Bosnia and Herzegovina and advance to the round of 16, and Spain to the semifinals. Another commenter in the same thread predicts Norway will lose, due to having “a b team.”
But what are pundits saying?
The BBC posted an article earlier this month chatting to it in house pundits. The general consensus there also favours France, Spain, England, Brazil, and Portugal, with either France or England taking home the trophy.
Sports broadcaster network DAZN have also placed France and Spain at the top, giving both teams the highest scores between offense, defense, team cohesion, coaching, and experience. Other top contenders are Argentina, Brazil, Portugal and England.
Play-by-play live coverage by Now Toronto here
Make your predictions online
If you want to take a stab at predicting which teams will win the knockout stage, FIFA’s website has a Match Predictor game that is free to play.
For each of the 16 games, players can select which team they think will be the first to score.
Check out the Match Predictor game here.
