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Thursday, June 13, 2019

2020 UEFA EURO qualification: 10000 simulations (12 June 2019)

The matchdays three and four in qualifying for EURO 2020 were played last week. See here for more information on the qualification process and the simulation results before the first qualifier was played. See here for the simulation results after MD2.


Here are the probabilities (in %) -generated over 10.000 simulations- for each UEFA team to qualify for EURO 2020, directly (Qdirect) or via the play-offs (po-semi, po-final and po-win). In column Qtot the total probability to qualify for EURO 2020 as the sum of Qdirect and po-win. Teams are ordered by this column. The two last columns indicate the difference in Qdirect en Qtot (in percentage-points) compared to the simulations after MD2.


team - group     Qdirect    po-semi    po-final      po-win          Qtot   diff Qdir   diff Qtot
Belgium - I 99,93 0,07 0,04 0,02 99,95 0,53 0,18
Spain - F 98,08 1,91 1,29 0,82 98,90 5,04 2,07
Italy - J 98,51 1,48 0,90 0,39 98,90 10,25 6,57
England - A 97,41 2,59 1,74 0,85 98,26 -2,02 -1,36
France - H 95,34 4,66 3,66 2,67 98,01 -4,05 -1,75
Poland - G 96,87 3,08 1,40 0,46 97,33 8,52 6,98
Germany - C 95,02 4,97 3,73 2,29 97,31 -0,08 0,06
Ukraine - B 94,85 5,15 2,98 1,58 96,43 28,75 18,60
Denmark - D 74,04 25,96 18,90 13,83 87,87 -3,90 -1,63
Netherlands - C 68,70 31,30 24,73 17,07 85,77 -14,45 -6,03
Portugal - B 65,42 34,58 27,92 18,17 83,59 -2,49 -0,97
Switzerland - D 73,25 26,75 18,44 9,93 83,18 -10,30 -8,05
Sweden - F 71,00 29,00 17,79 11,03 82,03 0,69 -1,08
Czech Republic - A 75,64 23,69 8,96 3,15 78,79 20,92 16,99
Croatia - E 66,02 33,84 21,84 11,26 77,28 -1,92 -3,91
Russia - I 70,99 29,01 13,74 6,00 76,99 -3,98 -3,59
Finland - J 71,10 28,90 10,98 4,15 75,25 42,37 34,54
Serbia - B 38,75 61,25 43,26 30,00 68,75 -26,71 -14,28
Austria - G 59,93 40,06 17,03 6,87 66,80 26,98 23,48
Hungary - E 56,91 36,86 13,84 5,74 62,65 33,08 31,56
Turkey - H 52,96 45,11 20,52 9,44 62,40 -12,69 -8,29
Republic of Ireland - D 51,75 45,06 18,82 8,53 60,28 14,39 10,58
Slovakia - E 45,99 52,56 25,91 12,40 58,39 3,45 1,29
Iceland - H 50,96 48,08 17,89 5,83 56,79 19,34 16,54
Kosovo - A 23,33 76,67 45,31 24,39 47,72 13,87 19,51
Wales - E 31,05 68,62 32,89 15,82 46,87 -33,48 -26,64
Northern Ireland - C 36,28 55,13 19,65 7,26 43,54 16,78 16,18
Scotland - I 25,93 74,07 41,70 16,57 42,50 4,59 0,71
Bosnia-Herzegovina - J 18,06 81,94 49,49 23,04 41,10 -36,63 -27,76
Norway - F 12,76 87,24 43,20 23,19 35,95 0,08 -3,51
Israel - G 28,69 65,68 19,00 5,75 34,44 -7,85 -7,10
Georgia - D 0,96 99,04 62,65 33,30 34,26 -0,19 1,72
Romania - F 18,16 47,92 25,81 16,09 34,25 -5,80 1,42
North Macedonia - G 2,79 97,21 42,08 18,77 21,56 -20,17 -21,26
Belarus - C 0,00 100,00 43,27 21,48 21,48 -1,01 -7,37
Slovenia - G 11,70 0,00 0,00 0,00 11,70 -6,93 -6,93
Bulgaria - A 0,68 98,53 30,46 9,26 9,94 -17,69 -20,08
Greece - J 7,59 4,46 1,32 0,52 8,11 -20,23 -20,19
Armenia - J 4,74 1,03 0,34 0,17 4,91 4,24 4,02
Montenegro - A 2,94 0,00 0,00 0,00 2,94 -15,08 -15,09
Luxembourg - B 0,92 25,99 6,34 1,89 2,81 0,54 0,67
Kazakhstan - I 2,32 0,00 0,00 0,00 2,32 0,87 0,87
Cyprus - I 0,83 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,83 -2,01 -2,01
Albania - H 0,74 0,49 0,17 0,02 0,76 -2,44 -2,47
Lithuania - B 0,06 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,06 -0,09 -0,09
Azerbaijan - E 0,03 0,06 0,01 0,00 0,03 -1,13 -1,14
Latvia - G 0,02 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,02 -0,55 -0,55
Estonia - C 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 -1,24 -1,24
Moldova - H 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 -0,16 -0,16
Malta - F 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 -0,01 -0,01
Andorra - H 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Faroe Islands - F 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Gibraltar - D 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Liechtenstein - J 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
San Marino - I 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00

Winners of this week are Finland and Hungary. Austria has recovered quickly from their bad start. 
Bad times though for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Wales and North Macedonia. Serbia has also lost some precious ground in the fight with Ukraine and Portugal in group B.
The participants in the Nations League finals didn't play a qualifier. England and Portugal didn't experience any negative side-effects from this. Both the Netherlands and Switzerland saw their probability to qualify directly shrink with some 10 to 15% because of continuous good results of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in groups C and D.



A preview of the composition of the play-off paths can be determined by taking the top two from each group with highest probabilities to qualify directly out of the equation and see which teams will qualify for the play-offs in that situation:

The 4 UNL group winners from league D: Georgia (40), North Macedonia (41), Kosovo (42) and Belarus (43).
Now Finland qualifies directly the 3 remaining UNL group winners from league C: Scotland (25), Norway (26) and Serbia (27).
From league B group winner Bosnia-Herzegovina (13).

The following non group-winners (ngw) complete the play-offs:
from league A Iceland (12)
from league B Wales (19), Slovakia (21), Republic of Ireland (23) and Northern Ireland (24)
from league C Bulgaria (29), Israel (30) and Romania (32)

League D - 4 group winners
League C - 3 group-winners + 3 non group-winners => draw: 2 ngw's to path A
League B - 1 group-winner + 4 non group-winners => draw: 1 ngw to path A
League A - 1 non group-winner

This leads to the following play-off semi finals:

D-path
Georgia - Belarus
North Macedonia - Kosovo

C-path
Scotland - draw from Bulgaria/Israel/Romania
Norway - Serbia

B-path
Bosnia-Herzegovina - draw from Republic of Ireland/Northern Ireland
draw from Wales/Slovakia - draw from Slovakia/Republic of Ireland

A-path
Iceland - draw from Israel/Romania
draw from Wales/Slovakia/Republic of Ireland/Northern Ireland - draw from Bulgaria/Israel

About me:

Software engineer, happily unmarried and non-religious. You won't find me on Twitter or other so called social media. Dutchman, joined the blog in March 2018.

5 comments:

  1. Great analysis, thanks! The 2 big problems with the Euros are that 24 teams is too many and makes for a clumsy finals format. And this new play-off system using Nations League ranking is very convoluted. Far better to keep it separate and have the 8 best 3-place teams in classic qualifying playing off. A team that knows it is ensured of a play-off place via the Nations League has no incentive to finish as high as it can in the classic qualifying group if it is unlikely to catch the top 2.

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  2. Every team in groups of 5 will have had a bye at the end of MD6 in September which should make each of the groups much easier to pick.

    It will be interesting to see if any of the bigger nations are starting to feel the heat heading into the last 4 matchdays.

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  3. The Nations League route to qualification is complicated but the point is that it lends that tournamnet additional credibility and importance. It is designed to replace most friendlies, so the more value it has, the greater the engagement will be. It is wrong to say that a team will not try in the classic qualifying group, because no team will have automatically qualified via the Nations League. At best they might know they are one of 4 teams in a semi-final and final play-off....no guarantees of coming through that.
    I think the Nations League concept has caught on reasonably well in its first attempt.

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    Replies
    1. To add to the above post: the overall ranking of the (regular) qualis is the basis for seeding. It will definitely be used for the final draw but could also be used to seed the next edition of the Nations League. In the NL seeding is quite important.

      Does anybody know if the overall ranking of the (regular) qualis or the one from the NL's first season will be used to seed the NL's second season?

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    2. I thought I've read somewhere that the NL-ranking of the previous NL-edition would be used for seeding. But I can't find it anymore, so I'm not sure.

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