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back to article It's boffins versus bookies on the World Cup Rankings

After all the fun and upsets of the World Cup 2010 Group stage Holland are still favourites to win according to the Reg stats expert Dr Ian McHale of Salford University. But a surprise addition to the top 3 is Uruguay – ranked 7th by the bookies, and not even in Dr McHale's rankings at the start of the tournament. “I think …

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  1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    Hup hup Oranje!

    As the son of a "cloggie" I do hope the Netherlands win. That said, there are a few upstarts this year who I think have done surprising well, and I think it would be no dishonour to have them emerge the victors.

    My condolences to England on your loss, but if it makes you guys feel any better, the US lost to Ghana.

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  2. DavCrav

    Played one lost one

    I guess the model suggests that the USA should beat Ghana. Back to the drawing board, eh? I suppose it might stand a reasonable chance of picking the winner after we have inputted more data into it like, say, the final?

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Pedantic? No sir, not this time...

    "Holland (or Netherlands if you're a cloggy)"

    Actually, if you're a cloggy, it's called 'Nederland'. But for some reason I do not expect you to understand, the country is called Holland again when football is concerned. You had it right all along ;-)

    Excellent boffinery btw. Orange ftw!

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  4. Hud Dunlap
    Grenade

    But what about the bad calls?

    How do you factor in variables like intentional bad calls from the referees'?

    Yes I am from the United States.

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  5. Raspy32

    Re: Bad calls

    You mean like the bad call that ruled out a perfectly valid England goal against Germany as apparently it needs to be more than a metre over the line before it counts?

    By the way, I'm not trying to claim that it would have made any difference to the result (England were dire) but just pointing out that bad calls aren't restricted to one game.

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  6. Spender
    FAIL

    "England and Germany look nice and close"

    Um. Yep. I'm really sold on this analysis.

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  7. Bruce Clare
    Go

    More boffins...

    Nate Silver (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ ) has been modeling cup probabilities for each elimination since the qualifiers. These chaps do baseball stats on a separate pay site and have done other sports as a sideline to their political stats. They are the folks behind the ESPN Soccer Power Index here in the US. On fivethirtyeight.com, they currently have a daily live update of the stats after each day's elimination matches.

    Not advocating their views over the professor's, just another set of boffins doing the same job. They did pick USA-Ghana as even money and Germany heavy over England, though.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    @Raspy32

    I guess that things do even out after 44 years then

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