​The World Cup quarter-finals kicked off this week, and before the action started, we looked back at how Liverpool Offside readers predicted the winner and who would claim the Golden Ball in our pre-World Cup survey, then asked who they thought would win as the tournament progresses. Before the tournament began, TLO readers picked Spain to win it all over France, though the margin was tight. Now, it’s no longer close, and France leads as the defending champions remind everyone just how good they can be. Across the entire network, the vote shifted a bit, but Spain still tops in TLO’s latest SB Nation Reacts! poll, conducted in partnership with FanDuel.
On the Golden Ball front, our readers weren’t ready to lock in a single player before the kickoff. Now, they’re leaning heavily toward Kylian Mbappe, which isn’t surprising given the strength of the French team’s title hopes. However, Mbappe’s Golden Ball chances aren’t dominant in the network-wide tally. He trails France’s overall tournament win prediction by about 15 points among TLO readers, and the nationwide numbers show an even larger gap, with Mbappe eight points behind in the broader network. That gap left room for Lionel Messi to edge Mbappe for the top spot, even though a majority of readers across the network still believe France will win the World Cup.
The data sketch a clear storyline: the most common expectation is that France will defeat Argentina in the final, yet Messi remains a plausible Golden Ball recipient given the potential for an Argentina-Messi triumph in the tournament’s final stages. That outcome feels credible to us as well, reflecting a world where the ultimate trophy goes to France while the Golden Ball could still go to Messi if Argentina reaches the final and Messi performs at his peak.
We hope you enjoyed reviewing the numbers as much as we did. As the World Cup winds down, we’ll keep hosting SB Nation Reacts polls in hopes of bringing you more engaging insights before the tournament concludes. If not, we’ll look forward to catching you again later in the season as club football returns to the pitch.