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Showing posts from May, 2014

(Short) Analysis of the (length of stay for) teams at World Cup 2014 - Groups E and F

I like World Cup, quite a lot, and think it's the best of all the tournaments that exist in football and very possibly in all of sport (at least for any tournament focused on one sport since the Olympics is amazing because of the variety). So I'll be trying to figure out how likely each team is to get out of the group stages and how far they'll probably go if they do. All the odds are from  www.bet365.com  which is the site I use most for trend spotting in sport (it's like my sport-Bloomberg). Group E Switzerland - The fact that Fifa rankings have somehow allowed Switzerland to be a seeded team and really that in itself should say how much the Fifa rankings formula needs to be adjusted, though the Elo system is also far from flawless. The Swiss are a team no one would mind facing at all and though strong do not have the intimidation factor of other top (and not top) ranked teams.  They did finish strongly in their group and qualified automatica

(Short) Analysis of the (length of stay for) teams at World Cup 2014 - Groups C and D

I like World Cup, quite a lot, and think it's the best of all the tournaments that exist in football and very possibly in all of sport (at least for any tournament focused on one sport since the Olympics is amazing because of the variety). So I'll be trying to figure out how likely each team is to get out of the group stages and how far they'll probably go if they do. All the odds are from  www.bet365.com  which is the site I use most for trend spotting in sport (it's like my sport-Bloomberg). Group C Colombia - The injury of Falcao has reduced Colombia from being able to potentially match any team in the world (by outscoring them while conceding a lot of goals probably. The defence isn't the best) to being another team teams would rather avoid but no longer fear. Even though he's expected to go to the World Cup, he's not fully fit and well short of any match experience. Many of Colombia's players are playing in Europe and should have exp

(Short) Analysis of the (length of stay for) teams at World Cup 2014 - Groups A and B

I like World Cup, quite a lot, and think it's the best of all the tournaments that exist in football and very possibly in all of sport (at least for any tournament focused on one sport since the Olympics is amazing because of the variety). So I'll be trying to figure out how likely each team is to get out of the group stages and how far they'll probably go if they do. All the odds are from  www.bet365.com  which is the site I use most for trend spotting in sport (it's like my sport-Bloomberg). Group A Brazil- Automatically qualified as hosts and at 1/20 to qualify have the second best odds of any team to make it out of the group phase behind Argentina (who have probably the softest group). It's with good reason Brazil have such low odds and they're considered favourites. Winning or even coming second in Group A doesn't mean an easy run as it probably would result in a round of sixteen clash against either defending champions Spain or the