Eight years ago, my then-girlfriend and I made our first World Cup bet. It was 2018, a teenager named Mbappé was tearing through his first World Cup, and we were still in our dating days — the kind of couple who turns everything into a small competition. We each picked a champion, shook hands, and a tradition was born.
Four years later, in 2022, we did it again — this time with a one-year-old on our laps who contributed mostly by chewing on the remote. And now, in 2026, the game has grown into a full five-person family draft, with rules, priorities, and one very opinionated five-year-old.
The rules
Simple, but sacred: everyone picks before the tournament starts, picks are made in priority order, and — most importantly — you cannot pick a team someone else already took. First come, first served. The stakes: bragging rights, and a "potential award" that Grandma takes very, very seriously.
Pick #1: The five-year-old oracle
Our son got first priority — house rules favor the youngest. He surveyed the entire footballing world with the confidence of someone whose known universe contains roughly six countries, and picked the U.S. and Brazil. His scouting report: he lives in one of them, and the other one is "the yellow team." You can't argue with that methodology.
Pick #2: The real fan of the house
My wife is, without question, the biggest FIFA fan in the family, so letting her pick second was an act of genuine sacrifice. She took Argentina and Spain — which is less a prediction than a declaration of love. She's a Messi fan and a Yamal fan, and she got even more excited after learning the now-famous story that Messi once bathed baby Yamal during a charity photo shoot, back when Yamal was an infant. Two generations of genius in one bathtub, and she has both of them in her bracket. If either team lifts the trophy on July 19, we will never hear the end of it.
Pick #3: The traditionalist
Grandpa went third and picked Germany and Portugal — the choice of a man who has watched football since before most of these players were born. Old-school pedigree, tournament DNA, no fancy analytics.
Pick #4: The competitor
Grandma is the most excited participant every single time. She was a sportswoman in her youth, and anything with a guess, a scoreboard, and a potential prize activates something fierce in her. Her heart said Brazil, Argentina, or Spain — but the no-duplicate rule had already claimed all three. So she took France, and then, refusing to leave value on the table, grabbed the Netherlands too. A forced pick, made with a champion's grumble.
Pick #5: The leftovers strategist
By the time it got to me, the board was picked clean. I went with England and Morocco — England on the eternal theory that football might finally come home, and Morocco on the memory of that magical 2022 semifinal run. Someone in this family has to represent the romantics.
Where we stand (as of July 6)
The tournament has been gloriously cruel to us. Norway — which exactly zero family members picked — knocked out our son's Brazil, with Haaland scoring both goals. The kid took it well; five-year-olds have short grief cycles and a second team. His USA plays Belgium tonight.
Grandma's forced pick of France? Currently the tournament favorite, cruising through the knockouts without conceding. She has already mentioned this several times, casually, at dinner. Grandpa's Portugal faces my wife's Spain tonight — the first true intra-family elimination match, and the couch seating chart may need diplomatic mediation. My England leads Mexico as I write this, Bellingham scoring twice, and Morocco meets France in the quarters. My wife's Argentina survived a scare against Cape Verde and plays Egypt tomorrow.
Three tournaments in, here's what I've learned: the predictions were never really the point. The point is Grandma trash-talking at breakfast, Grandpa explaining 1974 to a five-year-old, and my wife telling the bathtub story to anyone who stands still long enough. The trophy gets lifted on July 19 at MetLife. Ours gets lifted at the dinner table, and it's worth more.
P.S. — I also asked a handful of AI models to make the same prediction. What they said, and what it reveals about how these systems think, is a whole other story — one I've written up separately for the more technically curious.
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