First, let me be the millionth person to say what an amazing draw for the USA. It's about as good as we could've hoped, and for the first time actually we're a favorite to advance. What exactly are the odds of us advancing after this lucky draw? Well, it depends on who you ask. It seems like everybody has a national team rating system these days, so let's take a look at how each of them rate our chances.
Indeed, Voros McCracken, Soccer Power Index (Nate Silver), and the Castrol FIFA World Cup Predictor all have the USA as the second best team in the group. However, the odds for advancement differ (64%, 48%, 73% respectively). In addition, we're also favored to advance if you use the FIFA rankings or the ELO ratings.
Here are the odds for every team using each of the three projections:
Odds for Advancement
| Voros | SPI | Castrol | France | 69.1% | 60.0% | 59.0% | Uruguay | 54.8% | 62.0% | 61.5% | Mexico | 56.6% | 40.0% | 49.5% | South Africa | 19.5% | 38.0% | 30.0% |
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| Argentina | 79.4% | 77.0% | 79.1% | Nigeria | 40.6% | 58.0% | 47.3% | Greece | 46.0% | 36.0% | 46.1% | South Korea | 34.1% | 29.0% | 27.6% |
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| England | 89.7% | 82.0% | 90.2% | USA | 64.4% | 48.0% | 73.0% | Slovenia | 30.2% | 35.0% | 21.0% | Algeria | 15.7% | 35.0% | 15.9% |
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| Germany | 76.3% | 65.0% | 74.4% | Serbia | 51.2% | 49.0% | 47.9% | Australia | 45.9% | 41.0% | 48.2% | Ghana | 26.6% | 45.0% | 29.5% |
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| Netherlands | 79.3% | 72.0% | 79.8% | Denmark | 49.9% | 40.0% | 49.5% | Cameroon | 33.6% | 63.0% | 32.3% | Japan | 37.3% | 25.0% | 38.5% |
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| Italy | 83.6% | 83.0% | 84.3% | Paraguay | 67.8% | 78.0% | 73.3% | Slovakia | 43.9% | 32.0% | 38.8% | New Zealand | 4.8% | 8.0% | 3.6% |
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| Brazil | 90.8% | 84.0% | 91.7% | Portugal | 58.7% | 55.0% | 52.4% | Côte d'Ivoire | 45.3% | 57.0% | 50.5% | North Korea | 5.2% | 4.0% | 5.4% |
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| Spain | 88.0% | 84.0% | 88.1% | Chile | 44.2% | 57.0% | 40.2% | Switzerland | 38.2% | 29.0% | 36.9% | Honduras | 29.7% | 30.0% | 34.7% | The teams each one have advancing that the others don't:
Voros | Greece, Mexico | SPI | Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire | Castrol | Australia | I noticed one of the things SPI does is factor in a World Cup continent home field advantage, so that's why it has African teams higher.
Here's a chart of who each thinks will advance without percentages, including FIFA and ELO as well (using the higher ranked teams):
Advancement Chart
| Voros | SPI | Castrol | FIFA | ELO | France | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Uruguay |
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| Mexico | yes |
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| yes | yes | South Africa |
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| Argentina | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Nigeria |
| yes | yes |
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| Greece | yes |
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| yes | yes | South Korea |
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| England | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | USA | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Slovenia |
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| Algeria |
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| Germany | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Serbia | yes | yes |
| yes | yes | Australia |
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| yes |
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| Ghana |
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| Netherlands | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Denmark | yes |
| yes |
| yes (tie) | Cameroon |
| yes |
| yes |
| Japan |
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| yes (tie) |
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| Italy | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Paraguay | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Slovakia |
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| New Zealand |
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| Brazil | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Portugal | yes |
| yes | yes | yes | Côte d'Ivoire |
| yes |
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| North Korea |
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| Spain | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Chile | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Switzerland |
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| Honduras |
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Voros and Castrol also have odds for winning the entire tournament. I didn't see that for SPI (yet).
Odds for Winning
| Voros | Castrol | Algeria | 0.0% | 0.0% | Argentina | 6.6% | 7.5% | Australia | 1.0% | 1.3% | Brazil | 23.9% | 23.6% | Cameroon | 0.6% | 0.4% | Chile | 0.7% | 0.5% | Côte d'Ivoire | 1.1% | 1.5% | Denmark | 1.6% | 1.5% | England | 9.9% | 10.4% | France | 5.0% | 2.6% | Germany | 5.7% | 5.8% | Ghana | 0.1% | 0.2% | Greece | 0.7% | 0.8% | Honduras | 0.3% | 0.3% | Italy | 3.9% | 3.6% | Japan | 0.7% | 0.7% | Mexico | 2.0% | 1.3% | Netherlands | 10.7% | 10.1% | New Zealand | 0.0% | 0.0% | Nigeria | 0.6% | 1.1% | North Korea | 0.0% | 0.0% | Paraguay | 1.5% | 1.5% | Portugal | 3.5% | 1.8% | Serbia | 1.3% | 1.1% | Slovakia | 0.1% | 0.1% | Slovenia | 0.1% | 0.0% | South Africa | 0.1% | 0.3% | South Korea | 0.3% | 0.2% | Spain | 14.4% | 16.1% | Switzerland | 0.5% | 0.4% | Uruguay | 1.9% | 2.7% | USA | 1.2% | 2.4% | Only four teams differ by more than one percentage point. Voros has France and Portugal higher, while Castrol has Spain and the USA higher.Labels: 2010 world cup, Castrol FIFA World Cup Predictor, ELO ratings, fifa rankings, Soccer Power Index, Voros McCracken |
Comments on "World Cup Rating Systems Compared"
Scaryice,
I didn't make it with FIFA and ELO points, but using -and mixing- only the chances given by Vörös, Castrol and SPI, some points came out:
a) France is the favorite with the greatest chance to be eliminated in the first round;
b) groups A, D and E are the ones that could be called "Group of Death";
c) in Group B, besides ARG and NIG have a good advantage, GRE and KOR are not far enough behind to be disconsidered.
d) groups C and F are are the ones with the biggest difference between the top-2 (ENG, USA; ITA, PAR) and bottom-2 (SLV, ALG; SLK, NZL) teams;
e) group H has one strong team (SPA), and 3 close teams that could manage to get the 2nd place; and
f) group G has one strong team (BRA), one weak (KPR), and two very good teams (CIV, POR) that will battle hard for the 2nd spot.
Best regards,
Sancho
great job!
I would love it if you could post www.oddschecker.com predictions.They are pretty close to the others. I think they have 15of 16 the same as SPI.They differ only in the Ivory Coast-Portugal debate.
The other one i would like posted is the Aggregated Football World Ranking -List. Lots of foreigners do the same thing and that is updated before each round in a tournament. they beat the odds at euro 2008 3-1 on the 4 points of divergence.
@Sancho
Nice analysis. I'll add that if you add up the percentages, the closest group from 2nd to 4th is Group E. Japan and Honduras are not far behind, even though few people actually give them much of a shot.
Group H is the second closest, with Group D right behind.
@charles
I was going to post betting odds, but I couldn't find any to advance rather than to win the group. But I see that oddschecker has that so I'll have to add it later. Thanks for the link.
Scaryice,
The most intriguing part is that those numbers show almost exactly my perceptions about the draw...
SPI thinks Uruguay has a better chance of advancing than France? That's...interesting.