The FIFA 2014 world cup in Brazil is almost upon us and you can almost certainly sense the growing anticipation and football fever that is building around the world. Inevitably the world cup will tend to dominate conversations whether it’s in offices, pubs, with friends in the park, on the train or at home with the family. There is also the obligatory world cup sweepstake to really get you in the spirit. I for one will be supporting England.
Recently Prof Stephen Hawking posted an interesting blog on the odds of winning specifically focussing on England’s chances of winning matches in the world cup.
Using Professor Hawking’s study we can begin to quantify our chances of success in Brazil. His analysis is based on the results from all 45 matches England have played in since 1966 and all 204 penalties taken in the 22 world cup penalty shoot outs. Using this data he was able to come up with 2 general logistic models linking the probability of England winning a match and a second model for the probability of a player scoring a penalty.
Download the worksheet to try out the calculations using PTC Mathcad.
