With the World Cup about to start [written in 2014] it is an excellent time to consider what statistics can tell us about sport and how people think about probabilities. So who will win the world Cup?
Soccernomics
Stefan Szymanski has a series of books explaining the economics of sport. His book with Simon Kuper Soccernomics tries to explain “football”. They use regression to find out what predicts a country’s success. Being rich helps, meaning the core countries of the EU [included UK at time of writing] do well. Having a long history in the game also predicts success. Again the core countries of the EU have immense experience. That said, so do the South American nations.
Another major factor is population size. Being a large country is helpful. (Uruguay did a great job in the early years but has found it harder since). Basically, we should expect a large, rich country with a wealth of experience playing the game to win the tournament. Germany seems like an excellent bet, while Italy and France are not crazy predictions.
England: About What You’d Expect
How about England? The subtitle of the book — why England lose — captures the prediction. What the authors show is that England’s performance is about what you’d expect. The population of England is a little too small to win regularly. Still, being rich, with a long history the country consistently does quite well. Currently, [2014] the public’s mood is that the England team is weak. But as the authors say “..England’s performance in good or bad times are much the same. It’s just that fans and the media seek to see patterns where none exist” (Kuper and Szymanski, 2009, page 44).
Getting out of the group stage is a reasonable hope with reaching the last eight being a success. While England could easily fail at the group stage predicting the team will lose in the last 16 or 8 is a good bet in any tournament. The point is that playing the odds is better than trying to obsess about which players are injured or whether England’s midfield will gel.
Apart from being rich, large, and experienced at football what else helps predict success. Home-field advantage is massive, so good news for Brazil this year [in 2014]. What else? One country massively overperforms expectations. Which is, you’ve guessed it, good news for Brazil every year.
Who Will Win The World Cup?
The upshot of all the analysis is that you should expect Brazil or one of the bigger EU nations to win. [For the record Germany won]. While some will disagree, e.g. Spain, Argentinian, this seems a pretty good bet. Sadly, the bookies already use statistical analysis so the odds you’ll receive on these predictable choices won’t be great.
For more on soccer read here, here, and here.
Read: Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski (2009) Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, And Why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey — and Even Iraq — Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport, Nation Books