World Cup 2026: Joachim Klement - why reluctant 'guru' says Dutch will win World Cup

The Netherlands is arguably the strongest footballing nation never to have won a World Cup When Paul the Octopus predicted all of Germany's results correctly at the 2010 World Cup, he was hailed by the world as an oracle. But German economist Joachim Klement has trumped Paul with a complex forecast model which has kept a 100% record of predicting the World Cup winner since 2014. The Netherlands would become the fourth of four predicted winners to fulfil Klement's statistical prophecy if they lift the trophy in July. As well as the winners, his model maps out the breadth of the 48-team tournament - from a surprise win for Japan against Brazil in the second round to Scotland being knocked out by South Korea at the same stage. England are due to make it to the semi-finals, with Portugal poised to knock them out two decades after they did in 2006 - though the model stops short of foretelling 'penalties, again'. For Klement, a self-professed "pessimist" who has lived in the UK for 10 years, the research was never about protecting anyone from heartbreak, or winning big on a bet. Rather, he hoped to reveal the absurdity of trying to predict outcomes. "This started as an exercise in showin