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The
Geek Predictor
The Football
World Cup, since its inception in 1930 was not always played by
teams who actually qualified for it, due to undue political
interventions and boycotts. 1954 can be marked as the year when for
the first time World Cup was actually played by teams who qualified
for it, 36 teams entered the qualifiers and 16 of them entered the
finals. The
2010 FIFA World Cup will be the
only year in its long history when all the teams participating will
have participated in the qualifiers, the hosts South Africa was
required to play them since performance in these qualifiers was used
as a benchmark for qualification towards African Cup of Nations.
The Geek Predictor would use this as an opportunity to predict the
winner analyzing the history of the results of the teams who
participated in the qualifiers and went on to win the World Cup.
Since 1954, 14 World Cup tournaments have taken place where 4
were won by the hosts and 1 was won by holders Brazil in 1962. Thus,
9 World Cup tournaments were won by the team who actually
participated in the qualifiers. Brazil, the winners of 1958 World
Cup qualified for the finals by winning a virtual play-off
against Peru after Venezuela withdrew from their group, thus 1958
World Cup qualifiers cannot be used for analysis and prediction of
2010 winners.
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The
Brazilian team of 1970 is incomparable to any other team
ever to have graced the football pitch, and numbers do not
lie either, the team had the best per match scoring rate of
3.75 and conceded only 0.33 goals per match, which gave them
the best per match winning margin of 3.5 goals in
qualifiers, which ranks best among all the teams that has
ever won the World Cup.
The second
best margin is held by West German team of 1954 at
2.25, and no winning team has been able to touch even 2
since then. If we could neglect the incomparable Brazilian
team of 1970 we will find that the team that won the World
Cup did not have best scoring or defensive average in the
qualifiers or have the best per match winning margin, which
would be the difference between average scored and average
conceded per match. If we look closely, most of the winning
teams would struggle to remain even in the top five in any
of those standings of individual World Cup qualifiers.
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On an average the
team that goes on to win the World Cup have scored about 1 to 1.5
goals less than the best scoring team in the respective
qualifiers with the average standing at about 1.25. At the same time
the winning team would always concede an extra goal in every two
matches more than the team with best defensive record in the
qualifiers with the average standing at about 0.5. The World Cup
winning team will also have a per match winning margin pruned by
about a goal as compared to the team with best per match winning
margin, the average in this case stands at about 1.5.
In the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, England with 3.4 goals per
match stand at the top of the hit rate charts, with Holland
boasting the best per match defensive record with the concession of
a goal every 4 matches in the qualifiers. The best per match winning
margin is also proudly held by England at 2.8 goals. As per the
trends in previous World Cups the team that would win this World Cup
would have scored an average of about 1.8-2.5 goals per match,
conceded about 0.5-0.8 goals per match and hold a per match winning
margin of about 1-1.5 goals. Only two teams fit all three ranges
according to their optimal performance in the World Cup qualifiers,
they are Serbia, who have scored 2.2 goals and conceded 0.8 goals
per match, which gave them a per match winning margin of 1.4 goals
and USA with 2.3 goals scored, 0.9 goals conceded and winning margin
of 1.4 goals.
Serbia, who pushed
France to play-offs boast of defenders like Branislav Ivanovic
- who has been rated as best right back in premier league in the
season just concluded and Nemanja Vidic - who is considered
as one of the best central defenders in the world. They also have an
experienced striker in the form of 29-year-old Zigic and
midfielders Kacar and captain Stankovic, although they are in a
tough group with Australia, Germany and Ghana, they can expect to
come out of it and challenge other teams all the way to glory.
USA, with players like Tim Howard, Landon Donovan, Carlos
Bocanegra and Clint Dempsey can be expected to compete against
any team. They start in a relatively easy group with freely scoring
England, Slovenia and Algeria, which will allow them to ease into
the tournament and possibly be the first non-European and non-South
American team to take the coveted FIFA World Cup.
Contributing
Author: Ramith Nair
ramith_nair@in.com
Please note :
The views and opinion expressed in this article are purely that of
the Contributing Author. Content writer.in does not take any
responsibility for the same. |
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