Alright there’s eight teams left and the three biggest pre-tournament favorites remain in the competition. Five of the top six also remain with only England falling out from that group.
EDIT: A Minor Mathematical Error made the original numbers slightly off. These are no corrected. This error affected nothing until the “Knockout Stages post.” That’s what I get for trying to rush things. It has been caught now.
The National Team rankings have been updated again. They are here. Germany’s big result against the English also sees them jump past the English into the number five ranking. Ghana continues to make slow progress up the boards to number 36 and is now the lowest ranked team left in the tournament.
Here is a table with the results of the chances of each team going out at each stage. Like last time, these were not sims but numbers derived directly from the ratings. Brazil’s win chances are now up above 30%, and Spain’s win over Portugal has helped get them into solid second favorite territory again. Should the Dutch somehow overcome what’s looking like an increasingly invincible Brazilian team in the quarterfinals, they would emerge as a very legitimate contender.
Here are the individual predictions for each of the four quarterfinal matches:
Team Goals Advance% Uruguay 1.6 68.72% Ghana 0.9 31.28% Brazil 1.3 59.58% Netherlands 0.9 40.42% Argentina 1.5 52.85% Germany 1.4 47.15% Spain 1.6 75.49% Paraguay 0.6 24.51%
Argentina and Germany is not only the closest matchup, but each team has a high scoring record. That one shapes up to be a lot of fun. The Brazilians look strong; having that kind of advancement chances against an outstanding Dutch team is very, very impressive. They easily dispatched what was not at all a weak Chilean team in the Round of 16.
The chances of either Spain or Brazil winning the tournament now stand at 56.58% Adding the Dutch brings it up around 71%. Adding the Argentines brings it up around 81%.
10 responses so far ↓
1 dorian // Jun 30, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Would be crazy if all four S.America teams made it to the final four.
2 YairN // Jul 2, 2010 at 10:07 pm
What does Brazil going out do to the numbers? must change things drastically!
3 california viola // Jul 3, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Some numbers to digest:
Since the expansion of the world cup in 1982
* European teams have advanced to 25 out of 32 possible semifinal spots (78.1%)
* Thirteen European teams (Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey) have made it to the semifinals as compared to only four from the rest of the world (Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, Uruguay)
* Only three teams have made the semifinals at least four times; all three are European teams (France, Germany, Italy)
4 Daniel // Jul 5, 2010 at 12:26 am
These are the world cup results between all the “weaker” europeans and “weaker” south americans in World Cups (not considering the matches between Argentina,Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, England, France, Germany and Italy)
Europe WINS: 20
South American WINS: 19
Draws: 7
Of course it is easier for European teams to reach the semifinals! There are SO MANY of them, that they reach the semifinals, in many cases, only playing against each other.
5 Daniel // Jul 5, 2010 at 12:30 am
And besides that, in this WC we have in the TOP 10:
5 South americans (5/5) – 100%
1 Asian (1/4) – 25%
3 Europeans (3/13) – 23%
1 African (1/6) – 17%
6 ilias // Jul 5, 2010 at 1:04 am
“There are SO MANY of them, that they reach the semifinals, in many cases, only playing against each other.”
This is not true. All the europeans semifinalists (from 1982) won at least one non-european team.
7 Daniel // Jul 5, 2010 at 1:25 am
Yeah, but many times ONLY in the group stage, like Croatia in 1998, that played only against other europeans after the group stage.
I’m not saying that European teams are weak, but only that the “average” European is comparable to the “average” South american teams.
The only difference s that the probability that one European reaches the semi-final is much bigger than for a South American, because most of the times they play against each other
If we don’t consider the results between the “big ones” from both confederations, we had in this WC:
Chile 1 x 0 Switzerland
Paraguay 2 x 0 Slovakia
South America has 5 spots for the WC, what many people say it is not fair, cause it is 50% of the teams. But even the worst South Americans (Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia) are clearly better than at least 20 – 25 of the 51 European tems playing the qualifying.
13 spots for Europe is a good number, but only when the right teams are there. But with a poor qualifying system like this, it is almost impossible.
8 Daniel // Jul 5, 2010 at 1:31 am
Well I just took a look at the FIFA ranking, and Bolivia (the “worst” South American) is number 65, ahead of 18 European teams…
So it is 18, not 25 or 20. Yeah I exaggerated a little bit 😉
9 ilias // Jul 5, 2010 at 2:15 am
I think that the problem is not about COMNEBOL . It is that all the others confederations (except UEFA) have too many spots.
And the problem is political because COMNEBOL has 10 members-votes and AFC 40-50+.
Don’t you know that Joao Havelange replaced Stanley Rous as president of FIFA because he promised to CAF more spots in world cups and Africans voted him instead of Rous;
10 Daniel // Jul 5, 2010 at 4:12 am
I agree with you in this point. CAF should never have so many spots as CONMEBOL, for example
I also think that ASIA/OCEANIA should be agglutinated in only one. The fact that Australia “moved to” Asia is a good precedent to do it.
New Zealand did a good job in the WC, but they qualified playing against teams like Vanuatu, Samoa and Bahrain.
I think if I gather some mates we can play against Vanuatu, with good chances to win 😉
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