Late last week, just before World Cup 2026 kicked off, we had the chance to ask readers of The Liverpool Offside to make their predictions for which nation they thought would win this summer’s tournament as well as which player would win the Golden Ball as top scorer.
Today, we have the answers to those questions for the latest edition of SB Nation Reacts, in partnership with FanDuel, and based on the results in the opening days of this World Cup we’re thinking it might be a good thing this one is just
for bragging rights and not actual money.
That’s because the top pick amongst TLO readers to win the World Cup is Spain, who if you missed it was just held to a 0-0 draw with 67th-ranked Cabo Verde. Our readers won’t be alone there, though, given Spain are one of the consensus favourites to win the tournament.
In fact, Spain was the overall winner amongst voters across SB Nation. Meanwhile, TLO readers were a lot more bullish on France as second choice, with 31% of our readers picking Les Bleus compared to 23% network wide, while TLO readers had Brazil third instead of Argentina.
On the Golden Ball front, about a third of TLO readers went for “other,” which honestly might be the smart bet. Most would probably say Harry Kane or Kylian Mbappe are more likely to win it than any other player, but it is more likely some other player will win it in the end.
Across the network, the top three named players were the same—England’s Kane first, France’s Mbappe second, and Barcelona and Spain star Lamine Yamal third—but SB Nation readers as a whole are more confident one of them will be the winner and “other” coming fourth.
Hopefully everyone had fun with this one, and with a little luck maybe we’ll have a few more chances to take part in SB Nation Reacts before the World Cup comes to a close!
