Chris Sutton backs England to beat Norway in World Cup quarter-finals

Chris Sutton backed England to beat Norway in the World Cup quarter-finals, even though the BBC predictor game had moved ahead of both Sutton and the AI on 68 correct picks from 96 completed matches. The predictions came on Wednesday, 8 July 2026, as the knockout bracket narrowed to four ties and the tournament kept punishing the safest calls.

Norway’s 2-1 win over Brazil sent them into their first World Cup quarter-final and made Saturday’s meeting with England at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens one of the most closely watched matches of the round. FIFA’s match centre listed the fixture in Miami for 21:00 UTC, which lines up with a 17:00 local kickoff and 22:00 BST. Erling Haaland scored both goals against Brazil and pushed Norway into a collision with England at a stage they had never reached before.

The scoring race at the top of the tournament has become part of the same story. Haaland moved to seven World Cup goals, level with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, while Harry Kane sat one behind that trio. England’s task is no longer just to reach the semi-finals; it is to stop the striker who has carried Norway through their deepest run in the competition.

The BBC’s AI predictor had already been exposed by the tournament’s shocks, missing Norway’s win over Brazil and the United States’ exit to Belgium. Sutton had been more accurate in the last 16, missing only Switzerland’s penalty shootout victory over Colombia, but the broader trend remained the same: the quarter-finals have rewarded teams that have broken through expectation rather than simply confirmed it. AI’s quarter-final calls were generated using Microsoft Copilot Chat, underlining how quickly the bracket had outgrown the safest machine-generated assumptions.

Sutton’s other notable quarter-final pick was France to beat Morocco 2-1. He argued Morocco needed to play well for 90 minutes to get past France, said Ismael Saibari’s injury was a blow and pointed to Desire Doue’s substitute appearance as evidence of France’s strength in depth. With several of the last 16 favourites already gone, the quarter-finals have become less a referendum on reputation than a test of who can absorb pressure when the tournament tightens.