World Cup winner predicted by mathematician who correctly foresaw the last three champions

An economist who has correctly predicted the winners of the last three FIFA World Cup champions has revealed who he's backing this year.

In recent years, German mathematician Joachim Klement has garnered himself the reputation of an oracle in the sporting arena, having been bang-on with his World Cup winner's predictions since 2014.

That year, his own home team departed from host nation Brazil with the solid gold trophy and hefty cash prize, having narrowly beat fellow finalists Argentina. Four years later, Klement meticulously foresaw France's taking the top spot following their 4-2 victory over Croatia.

And when Argentina went on to secure the win in 2022, the numerical guru once again reaped the rewards of his alarmingly accurate prediction.

It's hardly a surprise, therefore, that millions of football fans are once again putting their trust in Klement, who revealed this week he's backing a team that many would consider an underdog.

"I seem to have a death wish after getting it right three times in a row," he told CBS News this week. "I picked a team that is considered to be not amongst the favourites this time around.

"Netherlands is a team that performs persistently above the batting average that it should have, based on the foundations of the country."

Asked who else he'd be tempted to keep an eye on, Klement confessed: "There are obviously the usual suspects. There are teams that are soccer powerhouses, like Brazil, Argentina, and Germany, France, Spain in Europe.

"They're always at, or near, the top."

He noted, however: "Then, there are teams that are constant out-performers, even though they shouldn't be as good as they really are.

"One of them is the Netherlands."

Klement is putting his money on The Netherlands (Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

Klement continued: "Arguably, they've never won the World Cup so far, but, for being a small country, they have been in three World Cup finals already.

"That really speaks for the culture and the process they have in place in developing talent."

He confessed: "I think they have a team that doesn't have real stars, like Messi for Argentina. But they have a team that is very level in the performance of every one of the players in the team. There's no real weak spot.

"The second thing is that they have a really good defence, and in soccer - more so than in most other sports - there's a saying that, 'Offence wins matches, defence wins tournaments', that actually is true in soccer in particular."

In terms of his prediction process, Klement also revealed he uses an 'economic model that uses economic variables', which rests on four factors.

"First of all, population. If you have more people in your country, you have a bigger talent pool to tap into," he started.

Klement said the Netherlands has one of the best defences (JUAN MABROMATA / AFP via Getty Images)

"The second one is climate. You need to be able to play soccer all year round."

Klement added: "If it's too hot, too cold, you can't play it, and that gives you a natural disadvantage. The third one is being wealthy enough to have the infrastructure to develop talent. It's not just enough to have a big talent pool.

"You also have to have the schools, the training grounds, etc, to develop them into world class players."

He concluded: "Then, the fourth one is the current FIFA world ranking, just to get an idea which teams have a particularly good generation of players right now."