The 2026 World Cup is right around the corner. It's another opportunity for us to grab our flags and re-pledge our loyalty to our countries (unless, of course, you’re Italian!) while we watch them likely get beat by France or one of the other national superpowers in soccer.

Hopefully you’ve already visited The7Oracles.com to get the latest updates and data on World Cup markets.

As we get closer, you know I’ll be talking about the World's Game and figuring out angles to invest. But until we get there, we have the Champions League AND the Europa League to quench our thirst for high-level international futbol.

The first leg of the quarterfinals in both leagues just concluded, and as we go into next week, there are some interesting angles to invest in in these markets.

PSG and Atletico both notched 2-0 wins.

The key here is to examine what you believe will happen in their respective second games. Normally, the first half of the second leg is played extremely tight and conservative by the team with the lead (in this case, PSG and Atletico). They want to protect their goal and make sure they don't give back any goals in the aggregate.

This leads to limited scoring in the first half because the team who is down doesn't feel the desperation to score just yet. In the second half, the team facing defeat opens up their offense and tries to take more risks, which opens them up to counterattacks. And that usually means the second half produces more scoring than the first.

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So when you see two teams like PSG and Atletico with 2-0 results, expect the first half to be extremely tight before the second half becomes a lot more fun to watch. Both matches get back to work on April 14th.

PSG to win is trading at 38% (Kalshi), good for 2.52x your investment.

Atletico to win is trading at 26%, which is 3.66x your investment. 

Liverpool and Barcelona will be pressing because they need to win by two goals to tie the aggregate. That means PSG and Atletico are incentivized to maintain possession and pack it in defensively, especially if they can get through the first half with a clean sheet.

Under 2.5 goals is trading at 28% on markets in the Atletico vs Barcelona match. If Atletico blows that two goal aggregate lead, go invest in the over and try to recoup your initial investment.

Wednesday will feature the final two semifinal games between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid as well as Arsenal vs Sporting CP. Bayern Munich defeated Real Madrid 2-1 last week in the first leg and Arsenal to a 1-0 win over Sporting CP. Expect those two games to be hotly contested as well. 

Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane are both trading at 52% in the race for the Champions League Golden Boot despite the fact that Mbappe holds a 3-goal lead.

And they go head to head on Wednesday. If neither of them scores but Munich moves on, Kane will have multiple games to chase Mbappe’s lead down. It's an interesting play. I would invest in Kane for this reason. Nobody else is close to Mbappe. If Real Madrid loses and Mbappe's stock drops, I would be interested in investing in him at the right price to outlast Kane's charge.

One quick link before we part ways: Check out our latest from Dane Martinez on who will be the next James Bond. Dane’s pick? Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who is a cool 22¢ at the moment!

Have a good one, everyone! And good luck with your picks!