Here’s the list of the chances of qualifying based on the 10,000 simulations. Obviously no rounding was needed.
| Country | Qualify% |
|---|---|
| South Africa | 100.00% |
| Brazil | 99.88% |
| Australia | 99.85% |
| Paraguay | 99.44% |
| Japan | 99.09% |
| Spain | 99.09% |
| Netherlands | 98.41% |
| Argentina | 98.34% |
| Mexico | 97.13% |
| England | 96.86% |
| Korea Republic | 95.59% |
| USA | 95.24% |
| Germany | 93.42% |
| Italy | 91.10% |
| Iran | 86.04% |
| Côte d’Ivoire | 79.29% |
| Czech Republic | 76.73% |
| Denmark | 75.35% |
| France | 72.86% |
| Honduras | 71.28% |
| Egypt | 66.76% |
| Chile | 66.64% |
| Ghana | 64.97% |
| Greece | 64.53% |
| Uruguay | 61.27% |
| Nigeria | 61.24% |
| Costa Rica | 59.61% |
| Russia | 54.10% |
| Switzerland | 48.62% |
| Saudi Arabia | 47.50% |
| Serbia | 46.93% |
| Morocco | 45.24% |
| Sweden | 43.70% |
| Cameroon | 43.62% |
| Turkey | 37.04% |
| Ireland Republic | 36.53% |
| Tunisia | 32.86% |
| Croatia | 32.04% |
| Portugal | 30.38% |
| Israel | 29.32% |
| Poland | 29.04% |
| Mali | 28.29% |
| Colombia | 28.28% |
| Ukraine | 26.48% |
| New Zealand | 26.25% |
| Romania | 24.14% |
| Slovakia | 22.36% |
| Korea DPR | 20.83% |
| Guinea | 17.45% |
| Scotland | 16.36% |
| Zambia | 15.85% |
| Uzbekistan | 15.37% |
| Bulgaria | 13.13% |
| Ecuador | 11.98% |
| Slovenia | 11.54% |
| Algeria | 11.23% |
| Lithuania | 7.52% |
| Rwanda | 6.16% |
| Bahrain | 5.90% |
| Gabon | 5.61% |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 5.54% |
| Togo | 5.53% |
| Belgium | 4.65% |
| Benin | 4.63% |
| Kenya | 3.44% |
| Bosnia-Herzegovina | 3.36% |
| Qatar | 3.36% |
| Finland | 3.30% |
| Wales | 3.16% |
| El Salvador | 2.81% |
| Burkina Faso | 2.80% |
| Hungary | 2.77% |
| Mozambique | 2.46% |
| Sudan | 2.11% |
| Venezuela | 1.89% |
| Montenegro | 1.77% |
| Latvia | 0.84% |
| Northern Ireland | 0.71% |
| Austria | 0.54% |
| Bolivia | 0.52% |
| Belarus | 0.48% |
| Malawi | 0.46% |
| Albania | 0.41% |
| Norway | 0.29% |
| United Arab Emirates | 0.22% |
| Peru | 0.15% |
| Cyprus | 0.05% |
| Macedonia FYR | 0.05% |
| Georgia | 0.03% |
| Moldova | 0.01% |
| Andorra | 0.00% |
| Armenia | 0.00% |
| Azerbaijan | 0.00% |
| Estonia | 0.00% |
| Faroe Islands | 0.00% |
| Iceland | 0.00% |
| Kazakhstan | 0.00% |
| Liechtenstein | 0.00% |
| Luxembourg | 0.00% |
| Malta | 0.00% |
| San Marino | 0.00% |
Thanks to FIFA for the necessary data.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Ross, England // Jan 28, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Have you compared these with any bookmaker’s odds to qualify for the World Cup?
The only thing I note from a brief glance is that Germany are two percentage points higher than Italy to qualify, despite having Russia as competition for top spot versus Ireland for the Italians. Is this down to the fixture lists, Ireland’s thus far good record or perhaps the lack of quality in Italy’s group.
Intriguing. I’ve just finished reading Moneyball for the second time and it started me thinking on how to apply Jamesean thought to soccer (I have a season ticket at Chelsea FC). I haven’t had any relevations as of yet!
2 Voros // Jan 30, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Well one is that Russia, despite their strong Euro performance, is not seen as that much better than Ireland. Ireland however, is one of those odd teams whose goal counts and actual results diverge a bit. They never seem to win as many games as they ought to based on how much they score.
And as you said the rest is based primarily on the better setup for Germany. The Germans already have wins against the Russians and the Welsh banked (though they were home wins) and lead the Russians by an extra point. In contrast, Italy still has to play the Irish twice which leaves a little room for the Irish to make up more ground.
When I did this I looked for qualification odds and didn’t really find anything. You have a link?
Expect updates after February 11th. I suspect more teams will hit the 100% mark very soon (an Australian win in Japan would almost certainly do it for them).
3 Ross, England // Feb 7, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Here is a good list for Europe:
http://www.sportingbet.com/Football;Internationals-;World-Cup-2010—European-Qualification/ECMARKET/102/160478/102
It has Russia over twice as short as Ireland to qualify and I would in large part agree with that – Russia have many more highly rated players than Ireland do (Pavlyuchenko and Arshavin to name but a couple). Of course that is a subjective judgement, but I would expect them to fare much better in a play-off scenario, depending on the opposition of course.
There is one wildcard however, Giovanni Trapattoni, who could get the most out of Ireland’s group of dependable professionals where others have not. I would still expect Italy to net at least 4 points from their games with the Irish, whereas Germany in Russia is a very even matchup.
4 Ross, England // Feb 7, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Addendum: Portugal are rated even shorter than Russia to win their group (31/20 versus 5/2) which is kind of at odds with your list. I would however imagine that 2nd place in Group 1 (as well as Group 9) runs the risk of not finishing as one of the best 8 runners up and therefore not qualifying at all. I do agree though that Portugal are underperforming, are in a troublesome group and have difficult remaining fixtures.
Fascinating stuff.
5 Voros // Feb 7, 2009 at 11:15 pm
I believe those odds are simply for winning the group and not necessarily for qualification. For example if you total up the expected win% for group 1, you get about 1.12 which matches what you’d expect for a single winner plus the vig. If it also included the possibility of one of the teams winning the playoff, then you’d expect that to be much higher. Group 4 gives the same total of 1.12.
So I could look at the sims and strictly pick out the group winners. I could also sim South Africa and see how that compares with their odds.
There will be a whole new update on Thursday, so I’ll try and get to it before then.
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