The FIFA World Cup expansion from 32 to 48 teams has created a plethora of one-sided games and some unexpected competitive matches. Pretournament favorites such as Argentina and France have both rolled through their group stage games. On the other hand, Spain, ranked third in the world by FIFA, faced an unexpected challenge, playing to a draw with Cape Verde, an island nation off the coast of Africa with a population of just over 500,000 people. Cape Verde continued its surprise play with two more draws.
England, ranked fourth in the world, faced an unexpectedly tough match with Ghana, playing to a draw. Both Spain and England advanced to the Round of 32, with Cape Verde and Ghana also joining them in this knockout round
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.All this soccer madness is akin to what college basketball fans in the U.S. experience every spring when 68 men’s and women’s college basketball teams come together to participate in March Madness. This single elimination tournament pits power conference and mid-major teams against each other on the court to determine who can win six games to be named national champion.
Lessons learned from March Madness can be used to guide spectators through the World Cup schedule.
First, given that the World Cup assembles the 48 teams into 12 groups, one poor performance will not eliminate a team from reaching the Round of 32 and beyond. This means that the stronger teams should advance out of the group stage. However, given that eight teams that finish third in their group will also advance to the Round of 32, the 12 highest ranked FIFA teams did advance, as expected.
Second, once the Round of 32 teams are set, the tournament becomes single elimination, which means a slow start in a game can upend the most talented team. Much like reaching the Round of 32 in March Madness, upsets occur regularly, though knowing which teams will be upset is nearly impossible to predict.
Third, a Cinderella story such as Cape Verde’s is great for the tournament, but much like mid-majors that advance to the Sweet 16 in March Madness, they often sputter out when faced with a superior opponent in a survive-and-advance environment.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, historical data does not lie. For those teams that reach the semifinals, countries ranked in the top 12 are certain to be the ones that have the best chance to remain standing. The same holds true in March Madness, in which 27 of the 41 national champions (66%) since 1985 were No. 1 seeds and nearly three-quarters of the Final Four teams were seeded No.1 , 2 or 3.
Other data that may inform the final two weeks of the tournament is that there has not been a repeat champion since Brazil, in 1958 and 1962. Moreover, since 1994, five of the eight winners (62%) were ranked in the top four, which is similar to the winning percentage of No. 1 seeds (there are four of them each tournament) in March Madness.
Additionally, the soccer team ranked No. 1 has not been the winner, which is similar to the bleak record of the overall top No. 1 seed winning the national championship in March Madness. This means that being highly ranked is important, but being ranked No. 1 in the pretournament rankings has not been a good position to be in. Perhaps this will be the year that the top team breaks the jinx and wins it all. (Good luck, Argentina.)
Holding the World Cup in North America has given Americans and Canadians the opportunity to observe and experience the hysteric attention that soccer holds around the world. As countries who view the Super Bowl (in the U.S.) and the Stanley Cup (in Canada) as the pinnacles of sporting achievement, the World Cup’s footprint of interest is beyond what sports fans domestically can appreciate.
If March Madness is a national event for college sports fans, the World Cup is an international event for everyone, even for those who are not typically sports fans. That is why millions of people around the world are spending their time and money to watch the 104 games that are being played. In times of world conflict and unrest, the World Cup provides a short-term respite, offering an environment of peace and harmony that no other event can facilitate.
Sheldon H. Jacobson is a computer science professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As a data scientist, he uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy, public health and sports.
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