World Cup 2022 Favorites After the Group Stage: Who Will Win the World Cup in Qatar?

The FIFA Men's World Cup in Qatar just keeps getting better as the game progresses. The intrigues, drama, excitement, disappointments, and upsets have been shared amongst participants in the group stage of the tournament. Countries who started the tournament as favorites have fallen so early in the competition, while some that were considered underdogs qualified from their group in style. One thing that can be deduced so far is that the world cup pendulum can swing in a different direction and against the bookmaker's favorites we might just have a new name for the title.

The quest to scale through a group of four teams from different continents was every coach's first target in the task of clinching the most prestigious trophy. Only Brazil, France, and Portugal out of the thirty-two teams made it to the round of sixteen after their first two games. Others had to wait to know their fate in the last game of the group-stage fixtures. Japan stole the show and became the team on all news headlines, carrying different captions about their escapade. Surprisingly, Germany and Belgium who actually started the tournament as two of the favorite teams to win the trophy with respect to their squad depth and FIFA ranking crashed out of the tournament embarrassingly. Lewandowski's Poland depended on the result of the other game between Saudi Arabia and Mexico to emerge as runner-up after being humbled by Argentina. Netherlands, England, USA, Senegal, and Morocco are some out of the sixteen to diffuse through the hustle and bustle of the World Cup group stage. As designed by FIFA, Group winners will play the runners-up of the next group to determine who progresses to the quarter-finals. A complete list of the team fixtures in the round of 16 has been put out for easy identification.

• Match 49: Saturday 3rd December 2022 Netherlands vs USA. Time: 3 pm GMT;
• Match 50: Saturday 3rd December 2022 Argentina vs Australia. Time: 7 pm GMT;
• Match 51: Sunday 4th December 2022 France vs Poland. Time 3 pm GMT;
• Match 52: Sunday 4th December 2022 England vs Senegal. Time 7 pm GMT;
• Match 53: Monday 5th December 2022 Japan vs Croatia. Time 3 pm GMT;
• Match 54: Monday 5th December 2022 Brazil vs South Korea. Time 7 pm GMT
• Match 55: Tuesday 6th December 2022 Morocco vs Spain. Time 3 pm GMT;
• Match 56: Tuesday 6th December 2022 Portugal vs Switzerland. Time 7 pm GMT

The group stage of the world cup in Qatar was full of surprises. Argentina was one of such teams to endure early surprises as they fell to a very resilient Saudi Arabian side. When we thought we had seen it all, Germany lost their footing at the hands of the Japanese national team signaling that football is truly won on the pitch and not on paper. But the performance of some big names in the tournament so far is also proof that tactics, history, and experience are huge factors that can be transferred from paper to the pitch and as such influence the predictions beforehand. Defending champions France have still got that magic touch that saw them secure the title in Russia. Also, the South American giants' Brazil and Argentina will not bow out of the competition without putting up a fight. Similarly, Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal, England, and Spain are clear favorites in our opinion after the group stage.

Japan's victory against Germany in their opening group-stage fixtures was considered a fluke by some sections of football lovers. This belief appeared to be true when they lost to Costa Rica in their second encounter. But their victory against Spain to qualify as winners in a group that has two former world champions has sent some form of shock wave to the entire football world. Morocco, which was one of the five African teams, was equally underrated by pundits. The flying power of Hakim Ziyech, Achraf Hakimi, and co was just sufficient to knock Belgium out, leaving Croatia to settle for second place. Sadio Mané's absence is not too felt by Senegal as they surprisingly booked a spot in the last sixteen. With what these teams have done so far, we might just be in for more surprises in the next stages of the world cup.

Quite a lot of bookmakers have various betting markets for the FIFA World Cup. Every team in the play-off stage has the potential of winning the trophy and as such has tempting odds assigned to them. Take a look at the odds from a few sportsbooks assigned to each team in the playoff stage to win the title.