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World Cup 2026 (pg. 5)
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| planetaryplayer |
| It’s fun to cheer for Canada but let’s not get delusional here. We are not a good team. Our guys play hard and compete but the quality is not there. I’m sure Bosnia are upset they let that one slip away |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
That's bonkers. Worse than Haiti or Cape Verde? It's totally possible Canada will beat them, I just think saying it's a near certainty is "DJ RANN on election night 2016" levels of over-confidence. |
Here's what I'll do. I'll tweak the model for "goals scored" versus "goals allowed", like 538 used to do back in the day. Let's see what changes.
As of now, my to-be-deprecated model says the game between Spain and Cape Verde will be the most lopsided one in the group stage, followed by the one between Germany and Curaçao, which had triggered me. Let’s see how that unfolds.
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Maybe I'll stick a bet on Qatar against Canada, looking at those odds. |
Do it. Thanks to exchange rates and those odds, if you bet one pound and end up winning, you might actually be able to buy Cape Verde or something :p
| quote: | Originally posted by planetaryplayer
It’s fun to cheer for Canada but let’s not get delusional here. We are not a good team. |
You’ve got an average team at home. Neither Mexico’s potential 'dark horse' status, nor the US 'cruising to the quarterfinals' odds. But, realistically speaking, Canada is as likely to top their group as the Netherlands. So... doable. Feasible. Dreamable  |
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| Vector A |
| Spain without a single goal in the first half against Cape Verde. Looool. Go Cape Verde! |
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| Lira |
Not all heroes wear capes. Some are the Cape themselves :p
*popcorn consumption intensifies* |
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| Vector A |
| Practically the whole game played in Cape Verde's half of the pitch and Spain still couldn't get it in. Hahaha. Good job, Cape Verde. |
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| Lira |
Haha, Jesus Christ :stongue:
We kind of see Cape Verde as a sibling here, so there were fireworks and everything. Anyway, I'm updating my model, and I'm running the stats in the background so let's see what will change once Excel churns all the percentages... either way, I don't think there was a way anyone could've predicted this. Speaking of rebelling against the numbers:
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
5 favourites I don't think will make it:- Spain: I don't make the rules. The top favourite by betting houses and FIFA Rankings has never won a World Cup somehow, except for Spain in 2010. So they're good, but apparently one can be too good, and they've already pulled it off once. Twice? That's a K-Pop group.
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Jokes aside, kind of called it. I've been betting against the maths gods regarding Spain because, as of now, they're too much of a favourite - often a distortion.
On to Belgium and Egypt. |
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| Vector A |
| Dang, Egypt's guys played their hearts out. Well-fought. |
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| Lira |
All right, I've recalibrated my model and tables are acting up here. Basically, it remains an ELO-based that went through dozens of thousands of Monte Carlo simulations, now taking into account both goals scored and goals allowed in the last 3 year. Where my model diverges from the more popular ones is due to the fact it's mostly team oriented rather than player oriented, simply because I don't have that much free time on my hands.
Anyway, here's how my model differs from the popular ones:
- Spain: Models like Opta have an absolute corporate crush on Spain (16.1%), treating them as undisputed tournament favorites based on endless passing matrices and individual starlets like Lamine Yamal. My model stripped away the romanticism because, sure, they've won things, but this is still the squad that has only won three WC games since 2010. Without the individual hype armor, they drop to a human 9.6% according to my model.
- La France: Most models view Les Bleus as an indestructible comic-book ensemble. My model looks at their actual tactical chassis, sees the structural fractures when those stars aren't bailed out by individual genius, and brutally slashes them down to 7.2%.
- Colombia: Most systems ignore them as contenders, practically ignored them, but my model looks at their terrifying systemic momentum and hands them a massive 6.0% chance to win the whole bloody thing. They farmed a whole lot of aura during the qualifiers, apparently.
- Argentina: Much to my chagrin, my model looks at Scaloni's terrifyingly rigid, brutal collective unit and crowns them my definitive tournament favorites at 14.1%, way higher than Spain. I believe this is a glitch, but I might be biased.
- Brazil: My model looks is a bit less sanguine than most predictions as it looks at our recent grim realities (dragging ourselves through a miserable 5th-place finish in CONMEBOL qualifying and that dreary 1-1 group stage draw against Morocco) and docks us to a harsh 5.2%. Fair.
- The Netherlands: The Dutch are a nation perpetually trapped in a geometric crisis of underachievement. My model agrees and gives them a 3.3% shot at glory, nearly as much as the Opta Supercomputer. I refuse to accept this reality.
- South Korea: By evaluating their structured automation and collective spatial discipline, they get a massive 81.0% chance to reach the Round of 32 out of Group A. They might lack the ultimate raw horsepower to win the final trophy (0.8%), but as a system, the machine works beautifully. And maybe, just maybe, this will be 2002 all over again.
The problem with my model, for the time being, is that it's too willing to give elite or near-elite teams huge win probabilities against lower-rated sides, especially in fixtures where the weaker team can bunker (a personal bias, surely). It's correctly predicted 87% of the matches in which there was a winner, but only 50% of the total because it hates draws.
Retrospectively, it got the scores right in the qualifiers 64.5% of the time (nearly 2 in 3). It usually fails when... the favourites tie. So, in short, it's not doing bad for an Excel-based homemade model, but I can't quit my day job just yet :p |
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| Vector A |
| Damn that was a smooth first goal for France. Good on Senegal for holding them back so long. |
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| Vector A |
| Mbappé is deadly. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
Every goal in that game was a banger. Don't underrate the pass from Olise for the first goal.
France looked a bit turgid at Euro 2024, with a few ageing stars and a very conservative brand of defence-first football, but there has been a fresh injection of attacking blood in their line up since then, with the young PSG stars and Michael Olise all stepping up to world class level in the last couple of years. Obviously it doesn't take a genius to predict that the team which reached the last two finals are the favourites, but it's hard to overstate just how scary their squad is. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Messi is surely too old to drag Argentina deep into another tournament these days |
I may need to revisit this statement. |
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