Artificial intelligence (AI) specialist Blue Yonder has picked Brazil to win the World Cup and claims that England only has a five percent chance of holding the trophy.
The outfit analysed every international match played since 1872 and ran a million simulations to predict the outcome, with Brazil given a 22.5 percent chance of winning.
Brazil was followed by Spain at 11 percent, Argentina at 9.5 percent and France at 7.8 percent.
Christian Haag, the data science consultant at Blue Yonder, explained how the AI came to its conclusion.
“We took data from every available international match going to back to 1872 and then ran simulations accounting for different outcomes for each match for all 32 teams, with either team one designated as the winner, team two winning, or a draw.
“We ran over one million simulations and calculated the chances of teams winning or finishing runner-up in the group stage, and reaching each stage of the tournament.”
England did not fare too well in the simulations and was given a 5.7 percent chance of glory in Russia this summer.
The Three Lions are predicted to win their first two matches against Tunisia and Panama in Group G, but are only given a 41.7 percent chance of beating Belgium in their final group game. Of course, you don’t need AI to know that England is not going to win. Channel Eye’s divination team thinks they will have a harder time against Tunisia and Panama because everyone expects them to win.
The AI has unexpectedly put host country Russia just behind in England in winning the World Cup with a 4.6 percent chance, with more famous teams such as Portugal and Belgium trailing behind.
“One of the interesting predictions that emerged from our simulations was Russia’s stronger-than-expected performance. The team has struggled in recent years, and the lack of a qualification process makes their strength hard to judge, but host teams often fare well, and Russia may surprise many at the tournament.”
