England Will Win World Cup 2010, According to Questionable Quantitative Analysis

May 18th, 2010 | by: Daryl |

27962-large The financial experts at J.P. Morgan took time out from computing the value of stocks and shares recently and applied their quantitative analysis technique to World Cup 2010. Using data like FIFA ranking, World Cup fixtures (ie route through the tournament), historical results and World Cup betting odds, they calculated that England will win World Cup 2010 by beating Spain in the final, with the Netherlands taking third place.

First, some sarcasm: It’s nice to know that the world’s economy has made a full recovery, freeing up financial analysts to spend their time speculating about the World Cup. The people of Greece will be relieved. Second, some more sarcasm: What a massive surprise to learn that the London branch of JP Morgan calculated a World Cup win for England, thereby guaranteeing maximum publicity for their prediction.

Maybe you have your own esoteric mathematical model designed to produce a populist outcome. Or maybe you just watch a lot of football and have a gut feeling about who will win World Cup 2010. Or maybe you just want to take a stab in the dark. Any method is welcome in our World Cup bracket competition, where you predict how the groups will finish and then who will win each knockout game.

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http://www.worldcupblog.org chris

That's pretty impressive that they used historical results to decipher the final would include two European teams when no European team has won one away from the continent.

And people wonder why the global economy went into the tank.

(Sarcasm is contagious.)
SethWCblog

Didn't these same financial analysts predict that the Czech Republic would win in 2006? Some experts they are.
The_Alchemist

Any analysis predicting England winning a major international tournament is prima facie questionable. Also, the FIFA ranking is as much a meaningful indicator for the quality of a team as a Greek budget is for the country's solvency. My take on this is that J.P. Morgan London didn't want to fire some of their useless analysts right away but let them cook out something that even makes it into halfway serious football blogs.

My formula is rather simple: all former WC winners minus Uruguay plus Spain = pool of potential winners. For more details please contact me and send a 75$ cheque.

Thank you
http://transpolyasexual.wordpress.com/ Cerberus137

These would be the same “experts” that would be responsible for the worldwide economic collapse, yes?

Scuse me I need to bet heavily on England not making it to the Finals (no offense England fans, but it's one of those “if they say the sky is blue, it's time to check outside” deals).
WorldCupBlog

Hear that, guys? We're “halfway serious”. Thanks, that's basically just what we aim for.
1_Luka

The_Alchemist's formula includes France as a potential winner, making it completely useless.
djdesa777

As per my formula, Argentina will win.
World Cup Winner = Country which has most of my Favorite players.
Argentina = Messi + Aguero + Pastore + Tevez + Mascherano + Lavezzi = 6 players
Spain = Xavi + Iniesta + Pique + Busquets + Pedro = 5 players
oskardevarsovie

Yep, those financial types sure know all about betting, taking risks and predicting the future. So let's brace for a spectacular collapse of the English team.
The_Alchemist

Agree. The more refined formula then reads:

multiple WC winners minus Uruguay plus Spain

This one excludes France and England, two birds killed with one stone. :)
http://www.facebook.com/people/Tina-Jouras/1322959015 Tina Jouras

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS 2004 – current (April) FIFA World Ranking No. 11 …Nobody will be overlooking GREECE, this time …and kindly let me remind everyone that there is a ball and it goes round and round. All WC teams are equally [GR]eat and have talented players, so it is just a case of which team will be “luckiest” … and this means that I would rather see a genuine HAPPY look on the face of THE Coach Otto Rehhagel than to see …Coach Maradona's OR whomever else's mug… acting all smug!!!! GO GREECE!!! …O epimenwn Elli.NIKA !!!!
matthew_laffan

all i can say is that last time north korea went to the world cup england won it! engalnd england england
Bense235

Because they were so right in the past years. They never had the top 4 correct within the past 8 years. Now you know who to trust on predictions, eh?