We took a deep dive on all 16 teams and produced our own power rankings. Our rankings are focused on the quality of each team, not explicitly their chance of winning. For example, we rate Argentina and Brazil very similarly, but Argentina has a much easier path to the semis, so we’d consider their chances of winning Copa America to be significantly higher. FYI, even though we show FIFA rankings and Vegas odds on each team below, these are for comparison purposes only. They are not part of our methodology. 

Here are the main factors we considered to produce our rankings:

• Recent Form: We focus on recent results in competitive matches. In competitive matches teams put their best foot forward, in contrast to “friendlies” where a team might give a new player a chance or try out a new tactic. For the South American teams, we’ve focused on standings in 2026 World Cup Qualifying. For North and Central American teams that is not available, so we looked at their performance in the 2023/2024 CONCACAF Nations League. On the margin, we did consider recent friendly performances, like the USA’s embarrassing loss to Colombia and historic draw against Brazil.
• Player Quality in the Starting 11: For each player on all 16 rosters, we produced a single measurement of their quality. To do this, we combine data from: 1) the transfer market, where teams buy and sell the rights to player contracts. Better players tend to be more expensive, but we note that the transfer value of a player declines as they age. We adjusted for this bias to produce a truer representation of a player’s quality; 2) Player performances during their most recent club season, as measured by independent soccer data sites. We did adjust these performances to consider the strength of the league in which each player plays. In other words, if you performed extremely well in the Premier League, we rated you higher than another player with identical performances in MLS or the Brazilian league; and 3) EA FC 24 Player Ratings – they are independent and, in general, well researched. 
• Quality on the Bench: We used the same methodology and applied it to players who have been making appearances for their national teams in recent matches, but not starting. We think this is particularly important in tournament play, where the games are frequent, injuries happen, and players get suspended for yellow and/or red cards. Teams that lack depth to withstand these circumstances were rated lower.

We used those player ratings to produce an overall rating for each team. For those, we took the average rating of players in each of the 5 phases of the game we present below (attack, midfield, defense, goalkeeping, and bench depth). We first averaged the rating of the players who are starting in attack, midfield, etc. Next we averaged the rating in each of those “phases” to produce a single number, which gives equal weight to each of the 5 phases.

As you can probably tell, there is some serious work behind these numbers. You can learn more about our analytical methodology here. If you still have questions or feedback, contact us. 

One last note before we dive in. There are no bad players in this tournament. Even though we rate the midfield of Panama with a red circle, those are objectively great soccer players. However, we have to distinguish between the relative awesomeness of each team and each player, and we think our rating system does exactly that. Without further ado, let’s get to the Power Rankings.