2010 World Cup: Who Do the Rating Systems Predict to Advance?

Four years ago, I looked at a number of factors in an attempt to see which would best predict the 16 teams to advance out of the group stage: form, GDP, odds, qualifying record, population, etc. In the end, the best predictors were the ELO rankings and the betting odds, which both got 13/16 right. Both missed Australia/Ecuador/Ghana. Actually, ELO had Iran and Mexico with the exact same ranking, and I'm giving them credit for Mexico. So count it as 12.5 if you like. The much-maligned FIFA rankings only got 10/16, missing the same three as well as Italy/Switzerland/Ukraine (remember the Czechs and USA both being ranked in the top 5?). So it's no wonder that they changed the formula immediately afterward. Since the FIFA rankings began in 1993, here's how both systems have done predicting the advancing teams: ELO FIFA 2006 13 10 2002 10 12 1998 14 11 1994 13 12 Total 50 45 PCT 78.1% 70.3% Who's favored to advance in South Africa? Let's take a look. I'm also including betting odds, SPI, Voros' simulations, and the Castrol Index. 2010 FIFA World Cup: Predicted to Advance ELO FIFA Odds SPI Voros Castrol Group A MEX, FRA FRA, URU FRA, MEX URU, FRA FRA, MEX FRA, URU Group B ARG, SK ARG, GRE ARG, NIG ARG, NIG ARG, GRE ARG, NIG Group C ENG, USA ENG, USA ENG, USA ENG, USA ENG, USA ENG, USA Group D GER, SER GER, SER GER, SER GER, SER GER, SER GER, SER Group E NET, DEN NET, CAM NET, DEN NET, DEN NET, DEN NET, DEN Group F ITA, PAR ITA, PAR ITA, PAR ITA, PAR ITA, PAR ITA, PAR Group G BRA, POR BRA, POR BRA, POR BRA, POR BRA, POR BRA, CIV Group H SPA, CHI SPA, CHI SPA, CHI SPA, CHI SPA, CHI SPA, CHI EDIT: SPI's final pre-World Cup sims showed Denmark advancing instead of Cameroon. Some notes on how I determined this. For FIFA, I just took the highest rated teams to advance. For ELO, I'm using the current rankings as of today (which may change a bit before the tournament). So it's fair to say that FIFA may be at a disadvantage since they only update once per month, and don't take into account the pre-tourney friendlies. For the betting odds, I looked at several top sites and they were all the same. Some sites had Cameroon equal to Denmark for the runner up in group E, but I didn't see any that had them ahead. For Castrol, I looked at their group predictions, which somehow are different than their listed advancement chances for each team (otherwise Australia and Portugal would be listed). All five have the exact same picks for groups C-D-F-H. Apparently Serbia is a bigger favorite than I'd thought. In fact, all five pick 12 of the same teams to advance (including the USA), which means that there are only differences of opinion on 4 spots. Here's the differences: ELO MEX-SK-DEN-POR FIFA URU-GRE-CAM-POR Odds MEX-NIG-DEN-POR SPI URU-NIG-CAM-POR Voros MEX-GRE-DEN-POR Castrol URU-NIG-DEN-CIV No love for South Africa, even at home. Despite virtually everyone being down on their chances, all six have France advancing from group A. Given Mexico's recent success at the World Cup group stage, it's surprising to see Uruguay with strong support. However, Mexico is ranked first in the group by ELO. On the other hand, Nate Silver's SPI ranks Uruguay as the group's top team. Quote: "Uruguay was a constant source of debate during the creation of the SPI." As probably the biggest difference between the systems, SPI may be judged solely by that pick. Also, I'll note that A is the only group with more than one team picked to finish first. Group B is the only one with all four teams picked to advance by someone. If all three non-Argentina teams are evenly matched, will home continent advantage for Nigeria be the difference? South Korea has the WC experience, while Greece boast the greatest achievement (Euro 2004). Denmark vs Cameroon is considered a toss up in terms of advancement by most of the betting sites, and may be the most up in the air spot of all. Nobody is giving Japan any chance, and that seems fair. Their coach said earlier this year that they could reach the semifinals, but reportedly offered to resign after losing to South Korea. With Drogba's injury, Portugal is even more favored to move on. Even Castrol, the only one to pick Cote d'Ivoire, lists Portugal with a slightly better chance of advancing (51.7% vs 51.1%). Once again, I can't explain why it's listed that way.

World Cup Rating Systems Compared

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% 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% 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% 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% 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% 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% 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% 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 yes yes Mexico yes yes yes South Africa Argentina yes yes yes yes yes Nigeria yes yes Greece yes yes yes South Korea England yes yes yes yes yes USA yes yes yes yes yes Slovenia Algeria Germany yes yes yes yes yes Serbia yes yes yes yes Australia yes Ghana Netherlands yes yes yes yes yes Denmark yes yes yes (tie) Cameroon yes yes Japan yes (tie) Italy yes yes yes yes yes Paraguay yes yes yes yes yes Slovakia New Zealand Brazil yes yes yes yes yes Portugal yes yes yes yes Côte d'Ivoire yes North Korea Spain yes yes yes yes yes Chile yes yes yes yes yes Switzerland Honduras 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.

World Cup 2010 Draw Preview

The seeding formula and pots have been released by FIFA. They've decided to use only the October 2009 FIFA ranking and nothing else to determine the seven seeded teams. I'm a bit disappointed, if only because the work of people like Edgar and myself has been for nothing this cycle. The big news is that the change means that the Netherlands will be seeded instead of France. You have to wonder exactly when this decision was made. It's convenient from a PR standpoint that France is left out after the Thierry Henry handball. I'm sure if they had any doubts about changing it, that made the decision clearer. Looking back, it's obvious that FIFA was a lot higher on using FIFA rankings since the formula for them was changed after the 2006 World Cup. They've been used heavily for seeding in World Cup qualifying. However, even if they were going to only use one month's ranking, it wasn't announced that they would the October rankings instead of November until November 20th, when the November ranking came out. That's also two days after World Cup qualifying (and France vs Ireland) ended. If they had used the November ranking instead of the October one, then France would have been seeded with England missing out. The reason given for using October over November was that "...using the November 2009 edition would create an uneven situation, specifically for the European Zone, where the play-offs involving the eight best runners-up led to an imbalance in the number of qualification matches played between the teams." Fair enough, but four years ago (as part of the more complex formula) they used the November rankings which did take into account the playoffs. Just like the seeding of the UEFA playoffs, it looks shady. Why not decide these things before the competition starts? Even if there's no conspiracy, FIFA's behavior gives people reason to believe that there might be. Because unlike the small changes to the formula in 2002 and 2006, this time the makeup of the seeded teams is affected by them. EDIT: Apparently the seeds were chosen by "feeling." What a joke. In other words, they decided which teams they wanted to seed and then picked a format based on that. The other big announcement is that just like four years ago, Africa and South America will be grouped together in one pot, with Asia and North America in the other (plus New Zealand). It would've been much better for the USA's chances to have been grouped with Africa rather than Asia. In that scenario, there was a 33% chance of drawing South Africa and a good chance of an easy Asia/Oceania team from the fourth pot. Now, we're guaranteed to draw an African or South American team, and the chance of drawing the hosts is only 1/8. As an American fan, here's what I would most and least like to see happen in Friday's draw. Oh, and if you decide to watch it live (noon Eastern, ESPN), remember that they have a ton of ceremonial stuff before they actually get down to business. Pot 1 - Seeded Teams Argentina Brazil England Germany Italy Netherlands South Africa Spain We want South Africa, it's as simple as that. They're the weakest team by far, even with the advantage of hosting. Besides, we already beat them in South Africa in a friendly this cycle, and we also got a point against South Korea in 2002. As for the others, I don't think it matters too much. We have gotten results against Spain and Italy in competitive games in the past four years, but I'm not sure I have a preference here other than avoiding Brazil. On paper, the Netherlands are probably the second worst team. So the chance of a good draw from this pot is 12.5%, while the other 87.5% is an average draw. Pot 3 - African/South American Teams Algeria Cameroon Chile Cote d’Ivoire Ghana Nigeria Paraguay Uruguay Algeria has to be the best choice, with Cote d'Ivoire and the South American teams the ones to avoid. Though I didn't look at it before writing that, Voros' national team rankings agree, placing Algeria way below the others. I'm not sure though, the African teams may be stronger due to the home continent advantage. So maybe the CONMEBOL trio are more desirable. Unfortunately, as mentioned above we can't draw an Asian team. Due to that grouping, this pot is pretty even in strength. The team we get here should matter the least when it comes to the odds of advancing. Pot 4 - European Teams Denmark France Greece Portugal Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Switzerland This is what it all comes down to. The USMNT's chances of advancing are greatly determined by what happens here. This matters more than anything else that's happened since the 2006 World Cup ended. A draw of France or Portugal would certainly make things very, very difficult and would be a nightmare. There's a 25% chance of that happening. The main goal is to avoid those two teams (75% chance). However, if at all possible it'd be nice to draw Slovakia or Slovenia (25%) chance. We should be favored over either of them regardless of what happens in friendlies. Of the other four teams, I would prefer Greece or Switzerland over Denmark or Serbia. However, they don't stand out like the others as good or bad draws. Goals & Possible Outcomes Our goals should be in this order: 1. Draw South Africa. 2. Avoid France/Portugal. 3. Draw Slovakia/Slovenia. You could also hope to draw Algeria and not say, Chile or Ivory Coast. But that's not as important. Possible Outcomes: 3.1% - Dream draw - South Africa, ???, Slovakia/Slovenia 6.2% - Very good - South Africa, ???, Denmark/Greece/Serbia/Switzerland 21.9% - Good - Other seeded team, ???, Slovakia/Slovenia 3.1% - Decent - South Africa, ???, France/Portugal 43.8% - Average - Other seeded team, ???, Denmark/Greece/Serbia/Switzerland 21.9% - Nightmare - Other seeded team, ???, France/Portugal An average draw is the most likely by far. As you can see, the odds of a really great draw are slim. I'm not expecting that, I just want to avoid the worst.

2010 World Cup Seeding News & Analysis

World Cup Qualifying is completed is completed. I've updated the 2010 World Cup Eliminations Timeline, which tells you exactly which date each team was eliminated and in what order. That won't require another update until June. But the real exciting news is that with all the qualifiers completed, we can now focus on the World Cup seeds and the draw. The seeds will be announced on December 2nd, and the draw is two days later. Edgar has the final seeding ranking, so check that out. If the formula doesn't change (a big if), France will have the final seed over Portugal. A couple major things I want to point out: 1) FIFA have decided this time around to use the October 2009 FIFA ranking as part of the formula instead of November 2009. The reason given is because they wanted to exclude the playoff games. As Edgar points out, it was considered fair last time to include them, so how is anything different now? While it doesn't appear to change the actual seeds, it's another shady decision at the last second. 2) Other possibilities: Of course, there's the possibility that FIFA might change the formula. They always seem to do so, albeit only slightly. Last time, they only used the two previous World Cups instead of three. If FIFA decided to reduce it to only include one previous World Cup (2006), then Portugal would be seeded at the expense of England. What if they only used those October FIFA rankings, and discarded past World Cup performance totally? Then France would miss out, and the Netherlands would be seeded instead. I don't know if the odds of that are good, but they've used the rankings in qualifying for seeding, and they made a big show of changing it after Germany 2006. It seems like they trust it more now. What if they decided to only use the October FIFA ranking and not any from the past two years, but still used the past two World Cup performances? No change. Although, if you use only the October ranking and only Germany 2006 performances, then again Portugal would replace England. 3) What should American fans be hoping for in the draw? The seeded pot will always be tough. Which seeded team we get is not really the key to a successful draw. The biggest thing is avoiding the top teams in the Euro pot. Here it is: Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland There is a huge disparity in the quality of those teams. Netherlands and Portugal would be instant death; if we get one of those two plus a seeded team, then there's only a very slim chance of advancing to the round of 16. Avoiding those two is the biggest goal of the draw, and there's a 75% chance of that. Denmark seems like the third best team, and we just saw what they can do against us. Serbia is probably 4th. Either of those teams would be tough as well. The other four teams I would consider to be a good draw. Slovakia and Slovenia would be a dream draw. The other hugely important part is what FIFA decides to do with the third and fourth pots. Last time, CONCACAF was paired with AFC, and the other pot was CAF/CONMEBOL/OFC. This time, you could still have AFC/CONCACAF (plus New Zealand) and CAF/CONMEBOL. But you could also have AFC/CONMEBOL and CAF/CONCACAF, like in 2002. The numbers add up to 8 either way. We'll see what they do. It would be better for the US if we were paired with CAF. Asian teams should be easier than African teams, especially on their home continent, so we want the chance to draw one. We'd also then have a 1/3 shot of drawing South Africa, which should be the easiest seed despite the home field advantage. Either way they do it, I feel it's important to avoid the CONMEBOL teams, which are stronger than African or Asian teams. You have a 37.5% chance of getting one, although it's less if CAF/CONMEBOL are paired, since South Africa can't be drawn with another African team. Or they could simplify all this and seed all four groups the same way they seed the top one, which is something I'd like to see.

FIFA Business: Seeding Formula, Pots, & 2014 Spots

1) The 2010 seeding formula. Using the previous formula (from 2006), it appears that Portugal's resurgence may see them get seeded after all at the expense of France. They were always in good shape as long as they managed to qualify, and that looks very likely now. The same eight teams have been in the running ever since July 2006, so one good team is going to get let out no matter what. Now despite what the formula shows us currently, we can never be certain as to what FIFA will actually do. The average person on the street would probably say that the previous World Cup runner up (France) should be seeded ahead of a team that barely qualified (Argentina). Remember, they've changed it slightly the past few World Cups. BTW, I didn't see this Soccernet article until now. US Soccer president Sunil Gulati doesn't know what the formula was in 2006. He said it included "...50 percent for performance over the last three World Cups" which is incorrect. Acutally, they only used the past two World Cups for the 2006 formula. Also wrong is author Frank Dell'Apa, so I guess that gives you an idea of how many people really follow this stuff closely. I'd really expect Gulati to know better. Anyway, there's speculation that this time only the current FIFA ranking could be used, maybe by itself or in conjunction with the previous World Cup performance half of the formula. I would approve such a decision. Why? Well, one thing that I always forget about until somebody mentions it is the fact that because the FIFA rankings half of the formula includes snapshots from three separate years (12/2007, 12/2008, 11/2009), matches from some years count more than others. The current FIFA rankings procedure takes into account the past four years worth of results (before 2006 it was eight years). Those results are weighted 100-50-30-20. If the seeding formula stays the same and uses three years worth of FIFA rankings, what they're doing is this: Dec-07 Dec-08 Nov-09 Total PCT 2009 100 100 16.7% 2008 100 50 150 25.0% 2007 100 50 30 180 30.0% 2006 50 30 20 100 16.7% 2005 30 20 50 8.3% 2004 20 20 3.3% So matches from 2007 are counted the most, closely followed by 2008. Compare this to only using Nov-09: Only Current Nov-09 2009 17% 50% 2008 25% 25% 2007 30% 15% 2006 17% 10% 2005 8% 2004 3% It makes more sense to do it this way when determined who should be seeded for next year. The whole idea of using the rankings in the formula is to measure who's the best right now, isn't it? And then since the other half involves previous World Cups, that half is for who was the best in the past, which gives you a formula that involves both past and present. 2) Not only will FIFA have to decide what formula to use, they'll also have to decide the four pots for the World Cup draw. Unless they decide to seed all pots (which IMO is a good idea, but that's another post), the top pot should consist of seeded teams and the second pot of UEFA teams. That leaves the following 16 teams left: 4.5 - AFC 5.0 - CAF 2.5 - CONMEBOL 3.5 - CONCACAF 0.5 - OFC Last time, AFC/CONCACAF/OFC was one pot and CAF/CONMEBOL was another. Before, it ws CAF/CONCACAF. What will they do this time? If Uruguay wins the playoff with Costa Rica, it makes things simple. CONCACAF and CONMEBOL would each be at three teams, and either could be paired with the five teams of AFC/OFC or CAF. If Costa Rica & New Zealand win, then you would expect the only option to be AFC/CONCACAF (4 + 4) and CAF/CONMEBOL/OFC (5 + 2 + 1). But if Costa Rica & Bahrain win, things get messy: 5.0 - AFC 5.0 - CAF 2.0 - CONMEBOL 4.0 - CONCACAF 0.0 - OFC Now this is where Edgar has suggested we could see the return of the dreaded "special pot" which was used for Serbia & Montenegro in 2006 when things didn't add up evenly. That's something to look out for. Or, they could just draw the groups instead of the teams which would be the fairer way to do it. That probably makes too much sense for FIFA, though. 3) I was discussing the possible 2014 World Cup qualifying playoffs on Bigsoccer the other day. No, it's not too early. Will the number of spots for each confederation change? Here's what I was thinking: The interesting thing for 2014 will be how Brazil hosting affects things. For 2010, they decided to give CAF 5 spots plus the host spot for a total of 6. That never used to be the case; before, they would've given CAF 4+host for a total of 5 (taking the host spot out of the normal number). So if they continue with the 2010 policy, Brazil as host should mean their spot wouldn't come out of the 4.5 for CONMEBOL. However, 5.5 total spots for that region (out of 10 teams) seems like a lot. Remember, for 2006 they originally reduced it to 4 (giving OFC a full spot) before changing it back. I would be kind of surprised to see CONMEBOL with 5.5. Given the way AFC didn't lose their spots after 2002, I wonder if FIFA might do something like give CONMEBOL only 4+host and then give the extra 0.5 to CAF. Thoughts?