World Cup

This cup is seen as the biggest event in world football. Though, for some massive players throughout history, it has been virtually impossible to win this prestigious prize. This comes down to the fact that you can’t influence the place where you’ve been born. Top players that are born in a strong footballing nation will obviously have more chances to win it compared to footballers that are born in a small nation. At the time of writing, 32 nations that are affiliated to FIFA will have a chance to qualify for the World Cup. Nations can qualify through their continent’s own qualification process. The amount of starting positions per continent will be different for every World Cup because of the country or countries that will organize this tournament. Hosts will always be granted a ticket automatically. Alright, let’s give you an impression on how the tickets are distributed over all those continents based on the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.
Africa has five tickets to divide under all of its nations. They can be obtained after winning the final qualifying group as well as the final two legged play-off against another group winner. A pretty tough route. Asia will be able to hand out four tickets at least. First and second placed teams from each (final) qualifying group will be granted a ticket for the World Cup finals. The third placed teams from each group will play a play-off to advance to the intercontinental play-off where they meet the fifth placed team from South America. Qatar, in this case, will qualify automatically because they are hosts. North and Central American countries will have to make sure that they finish in the top three in their continent’s (final) qualifying group. If they succeed, they will go to the world cup finals. The fourth placed nation will play an intercontinental play-off against the winner of Oceania’s qualifying rounds.
South America will include all their nations in just one group. Number one to four will go to the World Cup finals and the fifth placed country will play an intercontinental play-off against Asia’s representative. Oceanian countries will be divided into two groups. Winners of each group will play each other in a play-off to qualify for the intercontinental play-off against a nation from North and Central America. Europe has by far the most representatives in a World Cup nowadays. Ten group winning nations will go to the World Cup finals. Three tickets will be divided over twelve teams that have to survive two knock-out rounds. The world cup is known to be a tournament where one of the big footballing nations eventually wins the trophy. Though, surprises are always there and big teams will often struggle against smaller nations that sit deep with their defensive backline. Keep this in mind when you are betting on the world cup. Let us elaborate some more on this prestigious tournament.

World Cup history

The first World Cup was held in 1930 in Uruguay. It only consisted of 13 teams at that time. Hosts Uruguay managed to win the tournament in front of their own crowd. Over the years, the world cup expanded to 32 nations today and for the 2026 world cup, FIFA is even planning to expand to 48! Hosts will be decided through bids that they present to FIFA. Some nations have had the privilege to be hosts twice, like France and Brazil. There has been a lot of debate about the 2022 world cup in Qatar. FIFA and this World Cup bid have been accused of corruption and hosts (Qatar) have been accused of humanitarian violation with the build of their brand new stadium(s). The greatest players of all time have shined on this stage with some players even participating in five different world cups like Messi and Christiano Ronaldo. Other massive players that played at the World Cup are: Maradona, Cruijff, Ronaldo Nazario de Lima (R9), Zidane and of course Pelé.

Popular teams that play in the World Cup

When we take a look at the most popular teams that play in the World Cup it is rather different from club teams. People would usually support the country where they have been born or/and raised or where they find their roots. Though, the biggest footballing nations would also receive a lot of support from people outside its borders. If we rank the most successful teams in the World Cup Brazil is definitely number one with five titles and also the most participations: 21. They are widely supported from all over the world as they are known to have played the most beautiful football throughout history, Brazilian samba football. They always tend to have technical players that are fun to watch. The two nations that come in second when it comes to success in World Cups are Italy and Germany. These two giants have managed to lift the most prestigious cup four times each. The popularity will usually go hand in hand with the popularity of the nation’s star player(s). It is fair to say that Argentina will get a lot of support from outside its borders as long as Lionel Messi is still playing for the national side. But when it comes to betting on the world cup, it is important to leave out all sentiments and biases to achieve the best results.

Tips for betting on the World Cup

The biggest threat for most sports bettors by betting on the world cup is the emotion that comes along with it. A lot of recreational sports bettors and punters find interest in the World Cup because their own country is playing in it. If you can’t shut off these emotions when you’re sorting out what bet you wanna put on, we highly recommend you not to bet on games involving your nation. But it goes beyond this. There are also reasons for people to dislike a certain country because of a long lasting rivalry like Brazil and Argentina have or other reasons. Ask yourself if you are not biased when you put a bet on. We can’t stress this enough. Another downfall can be that people can think that certain teams will absolutely destroy other teams because they have a much stronger squad. In reality, this is not very often the case. Smaller national sides often sit deep and fight for their country until the very end. Odds for teams that are heavy favorites are therefore usually not worth it and hard to find value for a decent bet. This can also be an opportunity for you to find underdogs that might potentially overperform against favorites. There might be some clues out there on why a big national team will struggle to break down a smaller nation. Draws are also an interesting option to look at in certain matches. It is often overlooked by sports bettors but it can hold some nice value. Be careful when you place a draw as a bet. Especially the last group game, where one of two teams might have to win to go through. This makes the probability of a draw go down. If they go on to attack with full risk, it also leaves them exposed at the back in many cases.

What type of bets are suitable for this league?

Asian markets are definitely the best options for you to use when it comes to the type of bets to place on a world cup. We’ve mentioned before that football fans would usually think that a certain squad is so much stronger on paper than the opposition that they will have to win (big). This is very often not the case and surprises on World Cups are sprung regularly. Try to find teams that give a solid impression and might make it difficult for the bigger teams. In our opinion, there is usually more value to find in betting in favor of an underdog. With Asian handicaps, the favorite can still win for you to win your bet. Asian lines or ‘over’ and ‘under’ betting is also a solid type of bet for the World Cup. Sports bettors tend to bet over a certain amount of goals instead of under because they don’t like to watch a game and hope for things not to happen. They want to see goals in most cases and thus they bet on them predominantly. This gives you an opportunity to exploit the ‘unders’. Average goals per game hasn’t been over three since the World Cup of 1958! So don’t be fooled. We’ve already mentioned betting on draws. Technically, the type of bet is 1X2 but let’s focus on draws. Again, draws are often a dirty word for most recreational sports bettors because of the reason that they simply want to back a certain team to win. But from the World Cup in 1998 until 2018, 27,1% of matches have ended in a draw. If you leave out the games where teams needed a win to not be eliminated, this percentage would probably be even higher!

Alternatives to betting on the World Cup

The Obvious alternative to betting on the World Cup would be betting on the European Cup. The only slight difference might be that European teams will usually play a different type of game compared to African Nations for example. But this also differs from team to team and cup to cup. Secondly, we think that the World Cup is also comparable to any other continental championship for nations because of its structure (group phase and single legged knock out rounds). So the Gold Cup, Copa America, Asian Cup, African Cup of Nations and the OFC Nations Cup.

Bookies with World Cup affinity