The Rise, the Fall, and the Glory

Every tournament writes its own myth. Ours was written 104 matches in advance — and then we let the simulations argue about it ten thousand times.

The throughline the model keeps returning to is generational handover. It opens in New Jersey with Brazil and France trading blows, and it closes in the same stadium five weeks later with the same two teams — only now the stakes are a star on the shirt. In between, a 19-year-old named Endrick scores the goals that bookend the story: the late winner in the group-stage opener, and the late winner in the final.

"The data doesn't fall in love with players. It fell in love with this one anyway." — the model, paraphrased.

France are cast as the perfect foil: Mbappé in his prime, a counter-attack that the simulations could never fully neutralise, a team that lost only when it ran into the one side with more ceiling. The model gives them the final more often than anyone else — just not often enough.

There are smaller arcs, too. Portugal's last dance. Morocco threatening the established order again. A host trio — the United States, Canada and Mexico — discovering what it means to carry a continent's expectation across three time zones.

This is the map of what's coming, drawn before kickoff. The fun part is watching how wrong, or how right, it turns out to be.