Brazil, the World Cup host and the clear favorite (in our view), will start off the tournament Thursday with a match against Croatia. Soon after, 30 other countries will take to the pitch with varying prospects of achieving their World Cup dreams. See the FiveThirtyEight World Cup predictions for more on that. But first: a brief tour of World Cup history. We wanted […]
Thursday kicks off the 2014 FIFA World Cup — the greatest sporting event in the world (don’t argue) — featuring most of the world’s best soccer talent. The month-long tournament can be a marathon for spectators: On any given day there can be up to four 90-minute games. This can make deciding which game to watch difficult! That’s […]
Thursday kicks off the 2014 FIFA World Cup — the greatest sporting event in the world (don’t argue) — featuring most of the world’s best soccer talent. The month-long tournament can be a marathon for spectators: On any given day there can be up to four 90-minute games. This can make deciding which game to watch difficult! That’s […]
On Monday we released FiveThirtyEight’s World Cup predictions, which are based on an algorithm I created with ESPN in 2010, the Soccer Power Index (SPI). Our model has Brazil as the clear frontrunner — partly because of the substantial advantage to the host nation in the World Cup, and partly because SPI rates Brazil as […]
On Monday we released FiveThirtyEight’s World Cup predictions, which are based on an algorithm I created with ESPN in 2010, the Soccer Power Index (SPI). Our model has Brazil as the clear frontrunner — partly because of the substantial advantage to the host nation in the World Cup, and partly because SPI rates Brazil as […]
