How The Favourites Have Fared In The Last 5 World Cups: Can Brazil lift the title in 2022?
A World Cup is on the horizon and the usual thrills and spills will surely light up the footballing world as 32 nations do battle to land glory in the showpiece final on December 18. Well, here at BettingOdds.com we want to focus on the favourites and take a trip down memory lane and look at how the favourites have fared in the last five tournaments...
How The Favourites Have Fared In The Last 5 World Cups
Unsurprisingly, Brazil are the current 4/1 favourites to win the 2022 World Cup and the nation that have lifted the trophy five times in their history, and remain the most successful nation in the history of the tournament, will have a sensational squad spearheaded by the PSG enigma Neymar, who is 16/1 to be the World Cup Top Goalscorer.
It's been an astonishing 20 years since Brazil last won the World Cup way back in 2002, but Tite's men will head to Qatar as the market leaders and will be looking to break that two-decade drought and duly become the first winning favourite since 2010 when Spain were victorious in South Africa.
Across the 21 World Cups that have taken place, nine have been won by the favourites, so Brazil will head into the event with a positive statistic behind them, but it's been hard going for favourites in recent times.
The South American heavyweights started favourites back in 2014 and 2018 as well and the former of those two years saw them crashing out in emphatic style in the semi-finals as they were trounced 7-1 by Germany, and then went on to lose the 3rd/4th play-off. Four years ago they headed the betting as well, but a classy Belgium side knocked them out in the quarter-finals, as they failed to deliver on the big stage once more.
The aforementioned Spain were a cut above the world back in 2010 as the likes of Xavi and Andres Iniesta inspired the European stars to glory, while in 2006 Brazil were yet again favourites and were knocked out in the quarter-finals again by a 1-0 defeat to France.
Fresh from World Cup glory in 1998 on home soil, France started the 2002 as hot favourites, but they were shambolic from start to finish and having lost their opening game 1-0 to Senegal they went on to draw 0-0 with Uruguay before a 2-0 defeat to Denmark saw them finish bottom of the group and they were dumped out the group with a whimper.
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How Will The Favourites Fare At The 2022 World Cup?
Current 4/1 favourites Brazil will have an embarrassment of riches in the attacking third with Neymar, Gabriel Jesus, Vinicius Jr and Gabriel Martinelli just four of their real forward-thinking stars and they are sure to score plenty during the tournament. A group consisting of Serbia, Switzerland and Cameroon should pose little threat in Group G, but it's the knockout stages that have seen the South Americans stumble in recent World Cups and there are some top notch nations set to do battle with them in the knockout stages.
Neighbours Argentina are the 6/1 second favourites and they will be spearheaded by the legendary Lionel Messi, who will be going in search of a first World Cup crown, while the likes of France (7/1), England (8/1) and (Spain (9/1) will all fancy their chances of going deep into the competition, so Brazil will certainly have their work cut out when trying to land their first World Cup in 20 years.
