Below are the groups from 2002, with "x"s to left marking the teams that advanced from the group and %s to the right indicating the teams' pre-WC (after the draw) odds of winning the WC. You'll note that the teams are ranked from 1-4 in each group based on their chances of winning it. What's interesting is that both of the top two teams advanced in only two of the eight groups. Overall: 4 of 8 top-rated teams advanced 5 of 8 second-rated teams advanced 3 of 8 third-rated teams advanced 4 of 8 fourth-rated teams advanced In other words if you think that ANY team in the field can't get out of their group you are wrong. Four of the eight teams picked to finish last moved on. And if you think that ANY team is a lock to get out of the group stages you are wrong. Two of the six seeded teams (not including the hosts) and three of the top eight ranked teams were gone before the knockout stages. Russia...........1.1% xJapan............0.9% xBelgium.........0.8% Tunisia..........0.2% Argentina.......13.8% xEngland.........6.3% Nigeria...........1.1% xSweden.........0.9% xBrazil............11.7% xTurkey...........0.9% Costa Rica.....0.2% China.............0.1% Portugal.........5.1% Poland...........0.9% xKorea............0.5% xUSA..............0.3% xItaly...............12.6% Croatia...........0.9% Ecuador.........0.5% xMexico..........0.5% France...........18.9% xDanmark........0.8% Uruguay.........0.8% xSenegal.........0.5% xSpain.............10.1% xParaguay.......0.9% Slovenia.........0.3% South Africa...0.2% xGermany........4.5% Cameroon......2.9% xIreland...........0.8% Saudi Arabia..0.1%
In hindsight, it's amazing to think Brazil was only rated as having the fourth highest chance of winning going into the tournament. Good info. Thanks.
Those numbers are even more astonishing when you consider that Japan and South Korea, clearly the 2 weakest seeds home field notwithstanding, both advanced.
I remember many sources saying that Brazil were in some sort of disarray and were not favored to win and stuff like that. So much for that.
It '02, it was very fashionable for the swells to sneer at the unsophisticated posters who fancied Brazil. The swells would publish reams of analysis demonstrating why Brazil '02 was different than Brazil '98 or '94, and that anybody who thought otherwise was a niaf. None of which presents today's swells from confidently pronouncing which teams will advance from the '06 bracket, thanks to their in-depth analysis of the current form of one team's players, or the tactical (in)abilities of their national manager, or the phase of the moon. But it should.
Thanks for the info, Serie Zed, this is all very interesting. It's amazing to me, too, that teams as good as Denmark and Sweden were given less than a 1% chance of winning the World Cup, compared to 10% for Spain and almost 13% for Italy. Was Spain ever 10x better than Sweden/Denmark? (To say nothing of the Euro 2004 griup in which Sweden/Denmark advanced over Italy).
You get repped for putting that info together... But here's the problem. Intentionally or not, this creates the impression that the '06 World Cup will be anthing like the '02 cup. The 'myth' is that highly rated teams are more likely to advance. That correlation didn't hold true in '02, but what about other WCs? I hear Bruce say that seedings and FIFA ratings don't matter, that the game is played on the field not paper, etc. etc. But if you look at the previous three World Cups (before '02), you might see a real connection between seeding and results. 'Anything can happen to seeded teams' might also be a myth. But I'm only asking the question. I'm too lazy to do the work Zed did.
Yes, it does look goofy in hindsight. Current odds that might well look laughable 12 months from now - Czechs 4%, U.S. 1% England 16%, Czechs 4% Portugal 5%, Japan 0.5%
With European home-field advantage returning in 2006, it might be more conducive to see the 1998 results.
Its pretty misleading to look just at 2002, the Europeans showed up tired and dissinterested. I'm a little confused about whether Netherlands was #1 seed in 90 or 94 but only counting advancing as #1 or #2 in the group we have 7/8 top seeds advance in '98 4/6 in '94 4 or 5 / 6 in '90 2002 was both an aberation and what happens when you only look at 1 data point.
Probably, but don't discount the fact that the gap is narrowing between the big fish and the little fish.
the home country has advanced from the first round in every World Cup (except maybe Spain in '82?). Even us in '94. so it's hardly surprising Japan & SK did too.
For a more recent European example, let's take a look at '04 Euros. (The percentages add up to about 140% because they are from an oddmaker looking to make a profit, but the relative positions remain informative.) Finals Portugal 16% Greece 2% Semis Czechs 11% Dutch 12% Quarters England 14% France 33% Sweden 5% Denmark 3% Nowheresville Italy 22% Spain 14% Germany 7% Bulgaria 2% Switzerland 2% Croatia 2% Russia 2% Latvia 1% In summary, people got the bottom third pretty much right (with one very large exception!), but after that the tournament was pretty much a crapshoot.
Current Odds of Each Team Advancing from Group Stages Well, I went digging for each team's 2006 odds of advancing from the group stages and found some very interesting trends... Brazil...93.5% Germany...90.1% Spain...86.2% France...85.5% England...84.0% Portugal...82.6% Mexico...79.4% Italy...78.7% Argentina...76.9% Netherlands...76.3% Ukraine...72.5% Sweden...68.5% Czech Rep...68.5% Poland...67.1% Switzerland...61.0% Croatia...49.5% South Korea...45.9% Paraguay...41.8% Ecuador...40.2% USA...36.9% Australia...35.3% Ivory Coast...35.3% Tunisia...34.6% Serbia and Montenegro...31.4% Angola...28.3% Japan...28.2% Iran...28.1% Ghana...25.9% Costa Rica...24.2% Togo...22.1% Trinidad & Tobago...12.7% Saudi Arabia...11.6% First, the only two that are truly rated as outsiders are T&T and the Saudis. Second, thirteen of the seventeen rated as most likely to advance are from Europe. I'll suggest that, just as in 2002, there's a systematic bias in favor of the 2nd-tier European teams here. Real-world results (from the 2002 WC for starters, but its reflected in every ratings system in the world, too) suggest that those non-elite teams just aren't better than the rest of the world anymore. I think I'll put $25 down on every team from South Korea to Togo to advance from their group. Last time around 7 of the 14 that landed in this group advanced -- it'd take only about 5 to come out ahead.
England was seeded in 1990 and Belgium was seed in 1994 (they didn't even qualify for the World Cup in the 1980s, so a seed was impossible to justify until 1998). As to the general point of this thread, I'm a little confused as to where the odds you got come from. They have nothing to do with "seeds", so at minimum, the thread is mis-titled.
Re: Current Odds of Each Team Advancing from Group Stages Agree almost 100%. The European second tier teams aren't one whit better than the Asian or CONCACAF or African entrants. In a couple of cases, worse. But ... in '06 unlike '02 the Euro second tiers should justifiably be awarded home-turf credit. It looks like they have been given too much credit, but at least some home-turf boost is appropriate.
Re: Current Odds of Each Team Advancing from Group Stages I've just put together three examples, but my general question is, shouldn't these totals all add up to 200%?
Re: Current Odds of Each Team Advancing from Group Stages They would if the bookies were interested in giving fair odds ;-) That 10-20% spread you see is where they make their $$
England was in the 2nd group stage in 1982 and in the quarters in 1986. Belgium also was in the 2nd group stage in 1982, after winning its original group by beating the defending champion Argentina, and then they made the semis in 1986.
I know that, but it still means the other 6 seeds performed even worse than the initial stat would indicate.
There are so many things wrong with this thread. First of all, the misleading title. Second, "top rated" according to the odds and seeded are two different things. You say only 4 of 8 top rated teams advanced, well, 6 of 8 seeded teams advanced. So I fail to see how there is a "myth of the seeds." And, only one team is seeded per group. So given the title of the thread, you really shouldn't be talking about the other 24 teams. Stupid.
Seeds, odds, whatever. Step away from the details and the clear message is that at the '02 World Cup and the '04 Euros, people overestimated the top 1/3rd of the field, sharply underestimated the middle 1/3rd, and moderately underestimated the bottom 1/3rd. That might be meaningful information for evaluating the '06 Cup.
Ok, I thought we were dealing with polls in that post, not odds. Makes sense. Just to be clear, the "they" I referred to was the Netherlands. I wasn't questioning whether or not the English and Belgians were worthy of seeds; I was actually justifying the fact that the Dutch, even as reigning EURO champions, weren't.
Try the decaf next time dude. Unless you really can't follow the point of the thread. In which case PM me and I'll walk you through it. Edit: please don't PM me... "In other words if you think that ANY team in the field can't get out of their group you are wrong. Four of the eight teams picked to finish last moved on. And if you think that ANY team is a lock to get out of the group stages you are wrong. Two of the six seeded teams (not including the hosts) and three of the top eight ranked teams were gone before the knockout stages."
So I'm hearing three things (I think). Correct me if I'm wrong as they might apply to Germany: 1) The 2nd tier Euro teams, which definitely were overrated in Japorea may well be overrated again thought having the tournament in Europe should give them a bit of a boost that they didn't have in 02. 2) OTOH CONCACAF, CAF, AFC, and Oceania teams are steadily narrowing the gap between them and the Euro (and South American) teams and so predicting a return to what we saw in 98 or 90 is probably wrong. Thus the "Euro boost" in #1 above is probably negated. 3) In looking at the odds for Germany, since (I think) most of the bettors are European one would probably see four and possibly five groups of teams overrated: 1) Almost all Euro teams 2) Brazil and Argentina 3) Those teams that have in some way or another a close tie to Europe. maybe a large group of workers or immigrants. In other words a large group of bettors that inflate their team's chances. 4) Teams that have done well in the past. Most bettors really don't have a good handle on almost every team so they remember the past at the expense of the present. In other words they are fighting the last war. In Japorea: Argentina, Nigeria, France, and Croatia among others. In Germany: Korea? and probably a few others. 5) Teams that have one or more very high profile players in Europe. For instance Ghana and Essien as opposed to Saudi Arabia or Togo. Does this make any sense?