Who will win the World Cup? Science predicts it

The Qatar World Cup has already started and there is a lot of speculation about the winner. Since the famous octopus Paul predicted Spain’s victory in the 2010 World Cup South AfricaThere are many tools that have been used to predict the winners of major sports competitions.

The era of big data

We are in a time when quantitative and qualitative data analysis has been taken to another level. In this sense, theOxford university Created a mathematical model that he devised Joshua Paul Based on tests and tests determined which team is most likely to win this edition of the World Cup.

The winner and the curiosity of the painting

Twitter account of Oxford university He posted an image of what the qualifiers’ draw would look like after simulating the group stage results a million times.

In pairs, you can find out the chances of success of both teams and who will be the winner of each match. According to this study, Brazil will emerge as a champion after defeating Belgium in the final and will eliminate Spain in the quarter-finals.

Brazil and Argentina are the two candidates

The Oxford model determines that the teams most likely to win the competition are Brazil (14.72%) and Argentina (14.36%). However, since both teams are on the same side of the draw, Belgium (6.37%) will be the biggest winner, as they will reach the final despite other European teams having more options (Netherlands with 7, 84%, Spain with 7.03% and France the same percentage as the Belgians).

What factors are taken into consideration?

The model was created by the Elo Ratings analysis team focusing on each match of the participating teams since 2018. The algorithm has simulated up to 100,000 times per tie to determine which teams are most likely to win.

The author of this study, Joshua Bull, explained in detail how this algorithm works on the Oxford Mathematics YouTube channel.

other prediction models

Argentina, winner. Another prediction model that has become very popular before a competition starts is that of the financial firm Liberum Capital, with big data analysis based on factors such as each team’s match history, head-to-head matches between teams, an infinite number of individual statistics for each player and how they might affect the game. Who they share the squad with or who they play against.

On this occasion, expectations fell on the Albiceleste, who would defeat Gareth Southgate’s England in the final. In this case, Spain will reach the semi-finals and lose to Argentina.