{"id":1066,"date":"2026-06-30T12:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/?p=1066"},"modified":"2026-06-30T12:56:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:56:00","slug":"predicting-the-world-cup-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/30\/predicting-the-world-cup-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"Predicting the world cup winner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Solely for academic purposes. There are no blessings in betting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For convenience this study uses fifa world ranking scores1<\/a><\/sup> of mid-december of the year in which the world cup2<\/a><\/sup> was held.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year<\/td>Fifa ranking no. 1<\/td>Fifa ranking no. 2<\/td>Fifa ranking no. 3<\/td>Fifa ranking no. 4<\/td>Winner world cup<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
1994<\/td>Brazil<\/td>Spain<\/td>Sweden<\/td>Italy<\/td>Brazil<\/strong> (final won from Italy)<\/td><\/tr>
1998<\/td>Brazil<\/td>France<\/td>Germany<\/td>Croatia<\/td>France <\/strong>(finalist Brazil)<\/td><\/tr>
2002<\/td>Brazil<\/td>France<\/td>Spain<\/td>Germany<\/td>Brazil <\/strong>(finalist Germany)<\/td><\/tr>
2006<\/td>Brazil<\/td>Italy<\/td>Argentina<\/td>France<\/td>Italy <\/strong>(finalist France)<\/td><\/tr>
2010<\/td>Spain<\/td>Netherlands<\/td>Germany<\/td>Brazil<\/td>Spain <\/strong>(finalist Netherlands)<\/td><\/tr>
2014<\/td>Germany<\/td>Argentina<\/td>Colombia<\/td>Belgium<\/td>Germany <\/strong>(finalist Argentina)<\/td><\/tr>
2018<\/td>Belgium<\/td>France<\/td>Brazil<\/td>Croatia<\/td>France <\/strong>(finalist Croatia)<\/td><\/tr>
2022<\/td>Brazil<\/td>Argentina<\/td>France<\/td>Belgium<\/td>Argentina <\/strong>(finalist France)<\/td><\/tr>
2026 (pred.)4<\/a><\/sup><\/td>Argentina<\/td>Spain<\/td>France<\/td>England<\/td>see text<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As can be noted from the table the winner is always from the first two positions. Furthermore it is split exactly 50\/50 between the first spot and the second spot. This would indicate that both Spain and Argentina have a chance of 0.5 to win the world cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can we improve on this? Believe it or not but the historical results since 1952 are absolutely equal: Argentina has won six times, drawn two times and lost six times. So the only indication that we have is the “resultaat” or “=goals scored – goals conceded” which yields “-1” on a total of 37 goals. So this favours Spain<\/strong> over Argentina with 1\/37 = 0.027 (p).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

  1. https:\/\/inside.fifa.com\/fifa-world-ranking\/men?dateId=id56<\/a> \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_FIFA_World_Cup_finals<\/a> \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  3. This is possible if one assumes a point of view of cyclial time<\/em> rather than linear time<\/em>. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  4. Fifa world cup rankings data as of 11th of june \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Solely for academic purposes. There are no blessings in betting. For convenience this study uses fifa world ranking scores of mid-december of the year in which the world cup was held. Year Fifa ranking no. 1 Fifa ranking no. 2 Fifa ranking no. 3 Fifa ranking no. 4 Winner world cup 1994 Brazil Spain Sweden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"https:\/\/inside.fifa.com\/fifa-world-ranking\/men?dateId=id56<\/a>\",\"id\":\"48fd05cd-961e-4934-84af-666e7ee3224f\"},{\"content\":\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_FIFA_World_Cup_finals<\/a>\",\"id\":\"750a456f-5ee6-4120-bbce-d78a4bd9c809\"},{\"content\":\"This is possible if one assumes a point of view of cyclial time<\/em> rather than linear time<\/em>.\",\"id\":\"31889f35-a153-4ebf-be52-aa69229239f2\"},{\"content\":\"Fifa world cup rankings data as of 11th of june\",\"id\":\"e0248ad1-203d-47eb-8081-256e1f4ec520\"}]"},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-statistics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1070,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions\/1070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}