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Friday, September 13, 2013

2014 FIFA World Cup qualification chances (13 September 2013)

More about the simulations in the second and third paragraphs of the first 'Road to Brazil' post.

Most improved since the 6 September simulations:

49.55% - Uruguay
44.79% - Honduras
22.72% - Sweden
22.05% - Burkina Faso
14.22% - Senegal
10.27% - Cameroon
9.66% - Ethiopia
9.27% - Greece
8.33% - Belgium
7.94% - Jordan


Most declined:

-42.58% - Mexico
-21.27% - Venezuela
-19.46% - Peru
-18.46% - Uzbekistan
-15.39% - South Africa
-14.24% - Czech Republic
-12.07% - Uganda
-11.72% - Norway
-10.9% - Libya
-10.71% - Republic of Ireland

Colombia qualified in all the 10000 simulations:

100% - Colombia
99.98% - Spain
99.72% - Switzerland
99.66% - Germany
98.87% - Belgium
98.33% - Chile
92.58% - Uruguay
91.73% - Ecuador
86.94% - Honduras
86.84% - England
85.28% - Russia
82.35% - Bosnia-Herzegovina
80.31% - Portugal
77.73% - Côte d'Ivoire
71.21% - Greece
69.12% - Nigeria
66.02% - Ghana
64.93% - Croatia
55.29% - Ukraine
53.96% - Algeria
53.55% - Egypt
53.42% - Sweden
53.28% - France
46.75% - Tunisia
43.75% - Mexico
38.06% - Burkina Faso
37.65% - Senegal
37.27% - Cameroon
35.48% - New Zealand
33.75% - Panama
19.89% - Ethiopia
16.51% - Jordan
15.55% - Romania
9.24% - Bulgaria
7.97% - Denmark
7.89% - Hungary
6.22% - Montenegro
5.66% - Iceland
4.41% - Turkey
4.17% - Austria
3.8% - Norway
2.53% - Slovenia
0.9% - Poland
0.85% - Venezuela
0.35% - Czech Republic
0.1% - Albania
0.08% - Jamaica
0.05% - Israel
0.02% - Armenia

About me:

Christian, husband, father x 3, programmer, Romanian. Started the blog in March 2007. Quit in April 2018. You can find me on LinkedIn.

16 comments:

  1. Just as complementary information. Already qualified and, of course, out of this analysis:

    Brazil, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, USA, Costa Rica and Argentina.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Edgar, which program do you use to run the simulations?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. C# windows application using a MSSQL database.

      Delete
  3. Wow, Venezuela's and Ireland's chances are simulated as even less than 0.02%. That is likely close to the definition of an only theoretical chance on paper. But I do not understand why Tunisia's chance is smaller than Egypt's given that in the CAF playoffs the former will be seeded and the latter not. Could you please explain?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think because the match results (goals scored and goals received) are random simulations from a distribution based on the elo home team win expectancy, which in turn is dependent on the difference between elo ratings of both teams.

      The elo rating of the CAF play-off participants is:
      1 Cote d'Ivoire 1789 (s)
      2 Nigeria 1710 (s)
      3 Egypt 1691 (u)
      4 Ghana 1686 (s)
      5 Algeria 1584 (s)
      6 Cameroon 1568 (u)
      7 Senegal 1566 (u)
      8 Burkina Faso 1563 (u)
      9 Tunisia 1528 (s)
      10 Ethiopia 1407 (u)

      You can see that Egypt has a higher rating than seeded teams Ghana, Algeria and Tunisia. On the other hand of the unseeds only Ethiopia has a lower rating than Tunisia.

      Delete
    2. David, Venezuela must defeat Paraguay and then hope Ecuador or Uruguay lose both their matches (they play each other) AND overturn a 10 (Ecuador) or 6 (Uruguay) goal differential.

      Similarly, Ireland must beat Germany and Kazakhstan, and Sweden must lose to both Germany and Austria (at home) AND overturn a 6 (Sweden) and 8 (Austria, since all three would be level on points at 17) goal differential.

      As you say, theoretically possibly, but highly unlikely for both.

      Delete
  4. The African play-off pairings are:

    Cote d'Ivoire vs. Senegal
    Ethiopia vs. Nigeria
    Tunisia vs. Cameroon
    Ghana vs. Egypt
    Burkina Faso vs. Algeria

    The left side teams will be the hosts of the 1st leg, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Elo predicts:

    Cote d'Ivoire - Senegal: 2 wins CIV
    Ethiopia - Nigeria: 2 wins NGA
    Tunisia - Cameroon: home win TUN, draw in CMR
    Ghana - Egypt: home win GHA, draw in EGY
    Burkina Faso - Algeria: home win BFA, home win ALG, PSO win ALG

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And does Elo give Cameroon any chances for qualifying or at least winning at home?
      How much percent these chances are?

      Delete
    2. I've done 10.000 simulations of match-results, based on the elo win-expectancy.

      CIV-SEN
      1st match 69.1% CIV win - 12.4% draw - 18.5% SEN win
      2nd match 24.9% SEN win - 26.0% draw - 49.1% CIV win
      total 75.7% CIV win - 5.3% PSO - 19.0% SEN win

      ETH-NGA
      1st match 20.4% ETH win - 23.5% draw - 56.1% NGA win
      2nd match 78.3% NGA win - 14.0% draw - 7.8% ETH win
      total 84.2% NGA win - 3.5% PSO - 12.3% ETH win

      TUN-CMR
      1st match 50.3% TUN win - 25.9% draw - 23.8% CMR win
      2nd match 40.7% CMR win - 26.7% draw - 32.6% TUN win
      total 53.0% TUN win - 7.3% PSO - 39.8% CMR win

      GHA-EGY
      1st match 47.5% GHA win - 26.1% draw - 26.4% EGY win
      2nd match 45.2% EGY win - 26.1% draw - 28.7% GHA win
      total 48.4% GHA win - 7.5% PSO - 44.1% EGY win

      BFA-ALG
      1st match 44.8% BFA win - 26.1% draw - 29.1% ALG win
      2nd match 46.4% ALG win - 26.9% draw - 26.8% BFA win
      total 47.4% ALG win - 7.7% PSO - 44.9% BFA win

      Delete
    3. I can't believe Egypt's bad luck! They've done enough efforts at continental level in the past 10 years but they somehow fail to reach the WC. And now they have to face Ghana, possible the toughest african team?

      Delete
  6. Thank you, Ed :)

    So many simulations must be much time of work. Or can you generate this somehow automatically?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome.

      Of course this is automated in Excel, but that had to be made first. The simulations took me 2 minutes, the development of the simulation environment 2 hours.

      About the draw: according to the qualification probabilities there are two straightforward ties (CIV and NGA) and three rather close ones, which could go either way. Even Egypt (indeed, the draw could have been much kinder for them) still has considerable chances against Ghana.

      Delete