We're well into this World Cup, with every team having played twice, so it's a good time to take stock and see what might happen in the next set of games, ahead of the knockout rounds. I also thought I'd look at which of my predictions have already been proven wrong, because it's always fun to point out your own failures in public!
How are my predictions looking?
In my previous post I said France would go out in the first round, as every other European holder has done since 2002. This has not proved accurate. I can say that I was predicting it because no one ever predicts the holders to go out before the knockout rounds, but of course, that's a recent phenomenon and it's hard to argue convincingly without knowing more about what's happening within the team. I think each of the previous times it happened, the team was in crisis or the rest of the world had caught up to its tactics... but it's still interesting how often it happened.
Also, I did admirably cover my ass by saying I wouldn't be surprised if they bucked the trend this year, so good job me! I do still think that they won't go on to win the whole thing again, because a) it hasn't happened since 1962, and b) they haven't faced a strong team yet.
My prediction about the US was also based on precedent rather than a sober assessment of the squad's strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, they maintained their unbeaten World Cup record against England, so it's still possible that they'll get past Iran with a win and go out in the next round. We'll find out tomorrow!
England's also as good as through to the next round, which I think was an easy prediction to make. The only thing that could derail them is getting tonked by Wales and the US-Iran result being crazy too, but with respect to Wales, I don't think they're good enough. I still suspect England has a good path to the final, as well.
My prediction about this being Brazil or Argentina's year looks to be favoring Brazil. Though in my heart of hearts I still think it's going to a top-5 European side (England, France, Germany or Spain, with not-qualified Italy being the last of the 5). On current form France looks the side to beat, but as per my prediction above, England has the cohesion, if not the technical wizardry or speed, to go far, like they did in Euro 2020.
Finally, my prediction about home field advantage has been half right. I suggested Saudi Arabia and Iran wouldn't benefit from the proximity, but both have notched some impressive wins (especially the Saudi win over Argentina). I also suggested Tunisia and Morocco would benefit, and Morocco has indeed won against Belgium, which is a good result. Tunisia's only picked up a point so far, and plays France next, which probably won't result in more than a draw.
Western Europe vs the World
As I've watched the matches, I've also been tracking the performance of Western European teams against the rest of the world. I want to write a longer post about this, but the short version is: I was inspired by reading the latest edition of Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, in which they note the region's structural advantage over the rest of the world (including Eastern Europe). The most eye-opening stat from that section is that in 2006, the most recent World Cup held in Western Europe, the only Western European team to "lose" against a team from elsewhere was Switzerland, which lost its penalty shootout against Ukraine.
I should be clear here and note that Kuper and Szymanski actually refer to "core Europe", which can either mean the top leagues of England, Germany, Italy and Spain, or the founding members of the EU (Italy, West Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands but excluding Luxembourg). Their naming excludes teams from the edges of Western Europe, like Scandinavia, Wales and even England, but they also note that teams who play in the big leagues are favored. At the same time, Portugal is technically a small country at the margins of Western Europe but has nonetheless contributed a lot to Western Europe's dominant style, so the definition can be fluid.
However you define it, the region hasn't been as dominant since 2006, especially because of the holder's curse and the fact that Italy has failed to reach the round of 16 or even qualify since that tournament. But its ratio of wins (with ties counting as half a win) has actually grown since its lowest point in 2010, and I expect that trend to continue this year.
Scoreless draws
As a final point, there's been a lot of talk on the podcasts about scoreless draws in the group stage. So far there have been five, compared with just one in 2018, five in 2014 (for the entire group stage), six in 2010 and five in 2006. They addressed it on Totally Football, where someone noted that there were so few in 2018 because that was the first time the video-assistant referee (VAR) was used, so it picked up a lot more edge cases that in previous years wouldn't have resulted in penalties.
Counting them up just now indicates that, rather than shooting up to unprecedented levels, the number of scoreless draws has returned to its historical average. This could mean players have gotten used to VAR and aren't conceding as many penalties as in 2018, which was remarked as having quite a high number. Still, it's impressive that so many games have ended scoreless after just two match days, compared with the same number at the end of the group stage in three of the last four tournaments.
I hope to be able to revisit these predictions at the end of the week, when the group stage finishes, and possibly offer a few more predictions for the knockout stages. In the meantime, I'm trying to decide whether or not to wake up early for the matches that will be at 7am - I tried to get up at 5am for the England-Iran match and regretted it, but 7 should be easier...
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