World Cup upsets- South Korea vs Germany – Berlin, Germany – June 27, 2018 – Germany fans disappointed as South Korea beats Germany in the group stage of FIFA World Cup 2018.
| Photo Credit: Hannibal Hanschke
The first round of the FIFA World Cup is considered to be the least thrilling in the tournament given the potentially wide gap in quality between the competing teams. The groups are designed such that two strong teams don’t feature in the same lot. However, such matches can be exciting too. Some David versus Goliath matches lead to stunning defeats of the giants of the game. And when a lower-ranked team plays against a similarly ranked nation, the game may turn out to be gripping, given that there are no favourites to start with. Such encounters may also take place in the 2022 FIFA World Cup’s group-stage games. We look at each contest in the group-stage matches to assess the possible competitiveness based on Elo ratings.
Elo ratings are used to measure a team’s relative strength. The Elo system assigns a rating to each nation, using the results of previous international games. It adds weight based on the opponent’s strength and makes adjustments for the home team advantage and the goal difference. For this analysis, the Elo ratings at the start of each World Cup were considered.
For instance, the group-stage match between England and Iran on Monday would have been considered an “upset” had Iran won the game. This is because Iran’s Elo rating was 1,797 — 123 points less than England’s rating of 1,920 — at the start of the tournament. However, England won emphatically, scoring six goals in the game against Iran’s two. In other words, this was not an upset, but an expected win.
Table 1 shows the difference in the Elo ratings of teams that are playing against each other in the group stages. A higher number corresponds to a bigger difference in Elo ratings between two nations — in other words “predictable” fixtures. A smaller number points to closely fought battles as the Elo difference is lower.
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The biggest possible upset in this World Cup would be if Cameroon won against Brazil on December 3 in the Group G game. Cameroon’s rating of 1,610 was 559 points behind that of Brazil (2,169). If Saudi Arabia beats Argentina in today’s Group C game, that would count as the second biggest upset in terms of the Elo difference (508 points).
Group B games are expected to be close encounters as the U.S., Iran and Wales are closely ranked — all of them have relatively low ELO ratings. On the other hand, Group H games are expected to be more predictable, given the wide variation in rankings.
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If Elo ratings alone helped predict outcomes, then Brazil is the favourite to win the World Cup as it leads the pack with 2,169 points. While it is wildly improbable for Saudi Arabia to beat Argentina, World Cup games have often witnessed stranger-than-fiction upsets in the past. Chart 2 plots the difference between the Elo ratings of two teams competing in previous World Cups, in matches won by the lower-rated side.
The biggest shock came in 1950, when a hastily assembled team of part-time players from the U.S. beat a favourite, England, thanks to Haitian-born centre-forward Joe Gaetjens’ goal. The difference in Elo ratings was 496 points.
In the previous edition in Russia (2018), South Korea beat Germany 2-0 in the group stage, registering the fourth biggest upset after the U.S.’s win against England in 1950, Algeria’s win against West Germany in 1982, and Senegal’s victory against France in 2002. However, soon after the South-Korea Germany match, Russia won against Spain in the Round of 16 in the penalties and took the fourth spot as this was an even bigger upset than the one Germany faced.
vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in and rebecca.varghese@thehindu.co.in
Source: eloratings.net
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