Slowly but surely, teams are punching their tickets to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. 20 of the 48 teams have already secured their spots in the final tournament, and CAF World Cup qualifying is set to wrap up this weekend. Only UEFA, CONCACAF, the inter-confederation playoffs, and the second round of CAF qualifying will not have been officially decided by the end of the week.
It’s widely assumed that Spain, the +450 favorite to win next summer’s tournament, will qualify, but La Roja still have to go through the qualifying process by topping a group featuring Georgia, Türkiye, and Bulgaria. Right now, Spain tops the table after a 6-0 win over Türkiye and a 3-0 win over Bulgaria and will now face Georgia, which sits second in the table after losing narrowly to Türkiye and beating Bulgaria. The game will start at 2:45 p.m. ET (8:45 p.m. local) at Estadio Martínez Valero in Elche, Spain.
Spain is a -750 favorite to win and +800 to draw at DraftKings Sportsbook, while Jvarosnebi is +1800.
Spain vs. Georgia prediction, pick
There’s a reason why the 2024 Euro winners are also the favorites to win the 2026 World Cup: they are absolutely stacked with the world’s best young talent. Four of La Roja’s starters from that Euros triumph — Dani Carvajal, Rodri, Lamine Yamal, and Nico Williams — will all miss tonight’s clash with various injuries, as will Gavi and Dean Huijsen, but Spain’s replacements hardly represent a downgrade. It’ll still have Mikel Merino, an Arsenal midfielder who leads the team with four goals after smashing in a hat trick against Türkiye, and Mikel Oyarzabal and Pedri have three goal contributions each. Ferrán Torres has started up front for La Liga’s top-scoring side, Barcelona, and has scored with one of his two shot attempts in this World Cup Qualifying campaign. Pau Cubarsí, Marc Cucurella, Robin Le Normand, and Pedro Porro are a dominant back four, and Athletic Club goalkeeper Unai Simón hasn’t really been tested.
Jvarosnebi shouldn’t be taken lightly. The key for Georgia will be Paris Saint-Germain winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who picked up a hamstring injury in a September 27 match against Auxerre and wasn’t originally expected to be available for tonight’s match. If Kvaratskhelia is healthy, he may well be the best player on the pitch, as he’s two of his country’s five goals and netted in PSG’s Champions League triumph in May. Jvarosnebi may not be stacked with talent across the board, but its trio of top-tier players — Kvaratskhelia, Villarreal striker Georges Mikautadze, and goalie Giorgi Mamardashvili — are good enough to keep an upset dream alive. Plus, Zuriko Davitashvili had 17 goal contributions for Saint-Étienne in Ligue 1 last season and can play on either wing. In 2023-24, Mamardashvili led La Liga in post-shot expected goal differential, ahead of Simón, and he saved 78.8% of his opportunities in Georgia’s surprising 2024 Euros run to the Round of 16, where Mikautadze finished as the competition’s joint top scorer.
Of course, I’m burying the lede here: in that Round of 16 matchup, Jvarosnebi played La Roja, where they took an early 1-0 lead behind a Le Normand own goal before giving up four unanswered goals to Rodri, Fabián Ruiz, Williams, and Dani Olmo. This game might be a little bit closer, given that Rodri and Williams won’t be available and that Kvaratskhelia, Mikautadze, and Mamardashvili are probably slightly better players than they were last summer, but Spain beat Türkiye 6-0 away and Türkiye beat Georgia, 3-2, in Tbilisi. It’s true that Yamal, arguably the best offensive playmaker in the world, played in both of those matches, and that both club and country have historically struggled in attack without him, but Olmo is closer to Yamal than he is to Jvarosnebi’s right midfielder, Heorhii Tsitaishvili. I’ll take La Roja to win this one in a high-scoring affair.
