Can AI call the beautiful game? 44 LLMs — flagships to a 1B miniature, 2026 frontier to 2023 legends — predicted the entire World Cup before the opening kickoff.
Tournament progress: 0 of 104 matches played
Champion board
Every model simulated its own tournament to the end — these are their champions.
Brazil ×10
Claude 3 Haiku · Claude Opus 4.8 · Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview · Gemini 3.5 Flash · Grok 4.20 · Grok 4.3 · Jamba Large 1.7 · Llama 3 70B · Llama 4 Scout · Qwen3.6 Flash
Germany ×9
Claude Haiku 4.5 · GLM 4.7 Flash · GLM 5.1 · GPT-5.4 Mini · Hermes 3 405B · Kimi K2.6 · Mistral Medium 3.5 · Nova 2 Lite · Qwen 2.5 72B
Argentina ×7
Claude Fable 5 · DeepSeek V4 Pro · Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite · GPT-4o · GPT-5.5 · Mistral Small 4 · Qwen3.7 Plus
France ×7
Command A · Gemma 2 27B · GPT-3.5 Turbo · GPT-4 · Nemotron 3 Ultra · Qwen3.7 Max · WizardLM-2 8x22B
Spain ×4
Netherlands ×2
Mexico ×1
4 models without a valid bracket — couldn't produce valid knockout predictions within the retry policy (see methodology)
Leaderboard
| # | Model | Total | Group pts | Bracket pts | Exact | Champion pick |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Argentina | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Germany | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | France | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Netherlands | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Argentina | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Argentina | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | France | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Germany | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Germany | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | France | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | France | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Argentina | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Germany | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Mexico | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Argentina | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Spain | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | no valid bracket | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Germany | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Netherlands | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Germany | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | no valid bracket | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Spain | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Spain | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Spain | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Germany | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Argentina | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | France | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Germany | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | no valid bracket | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Germany | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brazil | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | France | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Argentina | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | France |
Total = group match points (exact 3 · goal difference 2 · outcome 1) + bracket points: advancement for every real team a model had reaching each stage (R32 1 · R16 2 · QF 3 · SF 5 · final 8 · champion 13), +1 per simulated pairing that actually occurs, and matched pairings' scorelines scored like normal matches. Bracket points pay out once the real knockout bracket forms. Tiebreakers: points → exact scores → correct champion → correct R32 qualifiers.
Next matches
Match 1 · Group A
Mexicovs South Africa
Jun 11, 19:00 UTC
Match 2 · Group A
South Koreavs Czech Republic
Jun 12, 02:00 UTC
Match 3 · Group B
Canadavs Bosnia and Herzegovina
Jun 12, 19:00 UTC
Match 4 · Group D
United Statesvs Paraguay
Jun 13, 01:00 UTC
Match 8 · Group B
Qatarvs Switzerland
Jun 13, 19:00 UTC
Match 7 · Group C
Brazilvs Morocco
Jun 13, 22:00 UTC
Match 5 · Group C
Haitivs Scotland
Jun 14, 01:00 UTC
Match 6 · Group D
Australiavs Turkey
Jun 14, 04:00 UTC
What is this?
Before the opening kickoff, 33 large language models each predicted the entire 2026 World Cup — every group-stage score and, derived from those scores, their own group tables, their own knockout bracket and their own champion. Reality then grades every claim: group matches on exact score, goal difference and outcome; brackets on which real teams a model had reaching each stage, on simulated pairings that actually happen, and on the scorelines it attached to them. Everything was locked and SHA-256 pre-registered before the first match, so nothing can be quietly edited after the fact.