Welcome to The Athletic’s daily World Cup Predictions.This article gives you the lowdown on all today’s games but with the bonus of some friendly competition…Throughout the tournament, we will have two Athletic writers (Andy Jones or Elias Burke — with help from our experts from each of the 48 countries) pitting our soccer knowledge against a different Athletic subscriber each day and ‘Algo’, the shiny new algorithm from The Athletic, which is making its computerised debut during the 2026 World Cup.Oh, and a dog called Stanley and a six-year-old called Wilfred (who some of you may remember from last season’s Premier League predictions).Our guest subscriber today is Nathaniel, from the U.S., who supports the USMNT, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Seattle Sounders. Good luck, Nathaniel!If you would like to apply to be our guest subscriber for a day during this tournament, please follow the instructions in the article here.
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What happened on Matchday 23?On paper, Australia-Egypt was the most evenly matched tie of the World Cup, with FIFA’s pre-tournament No 27-ranked side meeting No 29. It should probably come as no surprise, then, that there was nothing to split them after regular time, with Emam Ashour having put Egypt ahead before Mohamed Hany’s own goal levelled the scores in the second half.As the extra time clock ticked down towards penalties, Australia coach Tony Popovic made the bold move to replace starting goalkeeper Pat Beach with the experienced Mat Ryan. Whether Ryan was considered a technically superior goalkeeper in shootouts, or Popovic was just trying to mess with Egypt’s heads, the switch had no positive effect. Egypt were perfect from the spot, converting all four attempts, enough to progress after Australia missed twice, giving Algo and the experts a strong start.Mat Ryan comes on for Patrick Beach (Stefan Koops via Getty Images)If the first tie of the day was the most even, the next, in theory, should have been the most imbalanced. Argentina started the tournament as the No 1 team in the world, while World Cup debutants Cape Verde sat way down in 67th. But if this was supposed to be a walk in the park, goalkeeper Vozinha and his Cape Verde team-mates did not get the memo.Results from July 3, 2026 TA ExpertsThe AlgoReader PicksWilfred (age 6)Stanley the DogArgentinaCape Verde ARG ARG ARG ARG CPV ColombiaGhana COL COL COL COL COL AustraliaEgypt EGY EGY AUS AUS AUS Lionel Messi put Argentina in front with a brilliantly taken goal in the first half, but Deroy Duarte shocked the world by levelling the scores in the second half. Cape Verde hung on to a 1-1 draw in regular time, but it took just two minutes of extra time before Lisandro Martinez fired the world champions ahead, ending any chance of the greatest World Cup upset ever… until! Cape Verde’s star, Sidny Lopes Cabral, scored a goal-of-the-tournament contender in the 103rd minute, spectacularly curling past Emiliano Martinez from an improbable angle.But Cristian Romero, with some help from the arm of Cape Verde centre-back Diney, had the last laugh, heading past Vozinha in the 111th minute to finally kill the game off. No surprise Stanley was the only one to back Cape Verde, and it was so nearly the unbeatable call of the tournament.Following that was an impossible task for Colombia and Ghana, and the South Americans progressed with a 1-0 win. Ex-Wolverhampton Wanderers forward Jhon Arias scored the only goal in the 14th minute. Bayern Munich forward Luis Diaz, formerly of Liverpool, was inspired. A clean sweep of correct calls for all of us at Predictions HQ on that one, leaving Algo ahead of the experts by one on the leaderboard, as its ominous 13-game winning streak continues.OverallaccuracyCorrectpicksBeststreakThe algorithm68%6013TA experts67%5911Wilfred (age 6)65%577Reader picks61%545Stanley the dog39%344How do the predictions work?It’s pretty simple: we will give you some background on each game, players to watch and facts on the two teams. Then we will predict the outcome.We will maintain a leaderboard of how everyone gets on with their predictions (ranked by the percentage they get correct) but we’ll also keep a record of “streaks” — the number of predictions everyone gets right in a row. These streaks also form a crucial part of The Athletic’s interactive Soccer Pick’ems feature, allowing you to make your own picks every round as well.
