All Your World Cup Questions Answered
What is the Group of Death? What is the Group of Leisure?
The Group of Death is the hardest group from which to advance. Every World Cup, the pundits debate which Group is deadliest. There are numerous ways to quantify which Group is the deadliest.
How do you go about determining which Group is deadliest? Well, you can look at the betting odds for each team to win the World Cup and use those odds to get an implicit ranking. You can use those odds to simply rank the teams from 1 to 32 and use those rank numbers to calculate the deadliness of each Group. Or you can use the actual odds (example, 1 to 50 for Mexico versus 1 to 100 for USA) to calculate the deadliness of each Group.
This year it comes out the same either way – Group C is the deadliest Group, with Group E just slightly less deadly.
The Group of Leisure (i.e. the easiest Group) is Group B if you go by odds, or Group D if you go by rank numbers. Groups G, H, and A are also fairly leisurely, depending on which metric you use.
Or you can think about the deadliness of Groups in a different manner entirely. I would argue that it does not matter at all how good the best team is in the Group. They will take first place, and whether they take it my an inch or a mile doesn’t matter. Likewise, how badly the last place team plays does not matter at all. Whether by an inch or a mile, they will take the bottom rung. The real battle is fought out between the 2nd and placed teams. One of them will make it to the next round, and one will not. If I could pick my team’s Group, I would want the Group where the second ranked team in the Group had the worst odds. In other words, I’d want the Group where it was easiest to beat the second ranked team and sneak into the next round. That Group would be Group A or Group G (there is a tie between Switzerland and Poland). The Group of Death under this method of thinking is still Group C, where Holland will be very hard to send home.
Using basically the same logic, you might want your team to be in the Group with the worst 3rd ranked team, so it’s easy to beat that team and claim 2nd place. Under this method of thinking, you would want to be in Group D, where Iran should be fairly easy to defeat. And you would want to stay out of Groups C and E where Ivory Coast and USA will be difficult to send packing.
A final way of thinking about the ease of the various Groups is to look at the difference in the odds between the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams in each Group. The Group with the largest difference is the one where the 2nd ranked team should have the easiest time thumping the 3rd ranked team. That would be Group D, where Mexico should have no trouble dispatching Iran. The Group where the 2nd and 3rd place teams will be most evenly matched and thus battle hardest is Group E, where the Czech Republic will have a slight edge but be fairly evenly matched against USA.
The bottom line: Group C is the Group of Death, but Group E is right behind it in deadliness.
Group D appears to be the Group of Leisure, but Groups A, B, G and H are looking pretty comfortable also, depending on which method you use.
Only Group F is looking just right. Not too deadly. Not too leisurely.
Who will win?
If you use the betting odds to make predictions, it comes out this way:
Group A
Germany
Poland
Group B
England
Sweden
Group C
Argentina
Holland
Group D
Portugal
Mexico
Group E
Italy
Czech Republic
Group F
Brazil
Croatia
Group G
France
Switzerland
Group H
Spain
Ukraine
Second Round:
Germany def. Sweden
Argentina def. Mexico
England def. Poland
Holland def. Portugal
Italy def. Croatia
France def. Ukraine
Brazil def. Czech
Spain def. Switzerland
Quarter Finals:
Germany def. Argentina
Italy def. France
Brazil def. Spain
England def. Holland
Semi Finals:
Germany def. Italy
Brazil def. England
Finals:
Brazil def. Germany
What about the FIFA Coke world rankings?
They are whacked. The betting odds are a much more accurate view of what “the market” thinks the world rankings are. Using the betting odds as a benchmark, the FIFA Coke rankings look silly. They rank the USA 10 places too high, and Germany 17 places too low.
Where’s all the data you used for the analyses above?
Right here (Word doc).
The Group of Death is the hardest group from which to advance. Every World Cup, the pundits debate which Group is deadliest. There are numerous ways to quantify which Group is the deadliest.
How do you go about determining which Group is deadliest? Well, you can look at the betting odds for each team to win the World Cup and use those odds to get an implicit ranking. You can use those odds to simply rank the teams from 1 to 32 and use those rank numbers to calculate the deadliness of each Group. Or you can use the actual odds (example, 1 to 50 for Mexico versus 1 to 100 for USA) to calculate the deadliness of each Group.
This year it comes out the same either way – Group C is the deadliest Group, with Group E just slightly less deadly.
The Group of Leisure (i.e. the easiest Group) is Group B if you go by odds, or Group D if you go by rank numbers. Groups G, H, and A are also fairly leisurely, depending on which metric you use.
Or you can think about the deadliness of Groups in a different manner entirely. I would argue that it does not matter at all how good the best team is in the Group. They will take first place, and whether they take it my an inch or a mile doesn’t matter. Likewise, how badly the last place team plays does not matter at all. Whether by an inch or a mile, they will take the bottom rung. The real battle is fought out between the 2nd and placed teams. One of them will make it to the next round, and one will not. If I could pick my team’s Group, I would want the Group where the second ranked team in the Group had the worst odds. In other words, I’d want the Group where it was easiest to beat the second ranked team and sneak into the next round. That Group would be Group A or Group G (there is a tie between Switzerland and Poland). The Group of Death under this method of thinking is still Group C, where Holland will be very hard to send home.
Using basically the same logic, you might want your team to be in the Group with the worst 3rd ranked team, so it’s easy to beat that team and claim 2nd place. Under this method of thinking, you would want to be in Group D, where Iran should be fairly easy to defeat. And you would want to stay out of Groups C and E where Ivory Coast and USA will be difficult to send packing.
A final way of thinking about the ease of the various Groups is to look at the difference in the odds between the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams in each Group. The Group with the largest difference is the one where the 2nd ranked team should have the easiest time thumping the 3rd ranked team. That would be Group D, where Mexico should have no trouble dispatching Iran. The Group where the 2nd and 3rd place teams will be most evenly matched and thus battle hardest is Group E, where the Czech Republic will have a slight edge but be fairly evenly matched against USA.
The bottom line: Group C is the Group of Death, but Group E is right behind it in deadliness.
Group D appears to be the Group of Leisure, but Groups A, B, G and H are looking pretty comfortable also, depending on which method you use.
Only Group F is looking just right. Not too deadly. Not too leisurely.
Who will win?
If you use the betting odds to make predictions, it comes out this way:
Group A
Germany
Poland
Group B
England
Sweden
Group C
Argentina
Holland
Group D
Portugal
Mexico
Group E
Italy
Czech Republic
Group F
Brazil
Croatia
Group G
France
Switzerland
Group H
Spain
Ukraine
Second Round:
Germany def. Sweden
Argentina def. Mexico
England def. Poland
Holland def. Portugal
Italy def. Croatia
France def. Ukraine
Brazil def. Czech
Spain def. Switzerland
Quarter Finals:
Germany def. Argentina
Italy def. France
Brazil def. Spain
England def. Holland
Semi Finals:
Germany def. Italy
Brazil def. England
Finals:
Brazil def. Germany
What about the FIFA Coke world rankings?
They are whacked. The betting odds are a much more accurate view of what “the market” thinks the world rankings are. Using the betting odds as a benchmark, the FIFA Coke rankings look silly. They rank the USA 10 places too high, and Germany 17 places too low.
Where’s all the data you used for the analyses above?
Right here (Word doc).
