Spain's success at the 2024 European Championship put other nations on notice that they will be the team to beat at the World Cup next year.

Nothing that has happened since then has challenged the theory that odds of 4/1 to lift the trophy offer exceptional value to sports bettors.

The oddsmakers at Betway have clearly been impressed by Spain, placing them well ahead of the rest of the field in the ante-post market for the World Cup.

Their performances in their most recent qualifiers hammered home the point that Spain will be extremely tough to stop in North America.

Spain eased to a 3-0 victory in Bulgaria last Thursday, before romping to a hugely impressive 6-0 victory in Turkey three days later.

Turkey had not conceded 6 goals at home for 41 years, but they had no answer to a team which seems to be on an inevitable march to World Cup glory.

The manner of their second goal was an eye-opener. The move featured 25 passes and 66 touches on the ball, with every single team member involved at least once.

Given that Turkey are no mugs, it was astounding to witness them being made to look like a Sunday League team on their own patch.

While Spain demonstrated their World Cup credentials in the latest round of qualifiers, their so-called rivals were generally much less impressive.

France defeated Ukraine (2-0) and Iceland (2-1), but you would be hard-pushed to argue that they looked like potential World Cup winners in either game.

England labored to a 2-0 home victory over Andorra, before stepping things up with a 5-0 win in Serbia. The latter result was their best performance under new manager Thomas Tuchel.

However, the Three Lions have been down this road before. They are rarely troubled during the qualification process, but subsequently fail to live up to expectations in major tournaments.

Portugal picked up 6 points from their qualifiers against Armenia and Hungary, although they needed a late goal by Joao Cancelo to triumph in the second game.

Germany were defeated 2-0 in Slovakia -- their first-ever away defeat in World Cup qualifying matches. They bounced back to beat Northern Ireland 3-1, but were unconvincing.

The Netherlands and Italy also delivered mixed results, and look a long way short of the quality needed to win a World Cup title.

Elsewhere, Argentina and Brazil both suffered defeats in their latest qualification matches after recording 3-0 victories against weak teams in their previous games.

While all of Spain's main rivals will head to North America believing they can win the World Cup, it would be a brave move to back any of them to achieve the feat.

It seemed improbable to imagine that Spain would develop another group of players who could potentially match their 'Golden Generation' from earlier this century.

However, with Pedri and Lamine Yamal leading the charge, success at the World Cup next summer looks increasingly inevitable.

Head coach Luis de la Fuente believes the sky is the limit for Spain and has backed them to take the world by storm in North America.

"This generation is insatiable," De la Fuente said. "We will be prudent — we know there is a lot to be done still. Football changes from one week to the next.

"But this group will never take its feet off the ground, you can rest assured on that. We have the best footballers in the world, but we also choose good people.

"They know they have a chance of achieving very important things and they will never let that opportunity pass them by because of an excess of vanity, arrogance or anything like it."