The road to the 2026 FIFA World Cup starts on Friday for these two countries as Group D of UEFA qualifying gets underway. The group consists of France, Ukraine, Iceland and Azerbaijan. Ukraine and France will face off against each other simultaneously with Iceland hosting Azerbaijan.
France will be considered big favorites not only for this game but to win the group outright. For Ukraine, they will be looking for their second World Cup appearance in the country’s history after making it to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Can they book their tickets to the USA?
France are -245 favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook for this one, with a draw available at +360. Fancy a Ukraine upset? They are +750 on the moneyline.
Ukraine vs. France Prediction, Pick
This bet can be found under the “Match Parlays” tab. These two countries face off for the first time since 2021 as we get the UEFA World Cup qualifiers started. France are ranked third in the world in the FIFA World Rankings, while Ukraine comes in at 26th.
After losing the 2022 World Cup final to Argentina, the road back to that game for France starts on Friday as they face Ukraine. These nations face off for the sixth time since 2013 in this one. France have only won two of the previous five matches, highlighted with a 7-1 win in a friendly in 2020.
The French are the third-ranked country in the world for a reason. They lost a closely contested 2-1 game to eventual champions Spain in the semi-finals of the 2024 Euros, and of course lost the 2022 World Cup final to Argentina on penalties. They won the World Cup in 2018 with the emergence of Kylian Mbappe, and will be looking to do the same in the United States.
Ukraine have had some mixed results recently. In their last four games, they’ve won two and lost two. They played Belgium twice, beating them once 3-1 and then losing the reverse fixture 3-0. Those two Belgium games were followed by a loss to Canada and a win against New Zealand. Ukraine are a decent team on their day, and have some decent players like Oleksandr Zinchenko and Andriy Lunin.
That, however, is nothing compared to what the French have at their disposal. The likes of Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembélé and Désiré Doué will be ready to run rampant and fire the French into the World Cup. At least two goals have been scored in each of their last five games, and they have won six of their last nine games in all competitions.
Every team in this group will struggle to contain the French, and I expect Les Bleus to get the win on Friday.
