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How did Spain’s odds of winning Euro 2012 change after their first group match?

By Dr. Ed Feng 10 Comments

Spain didn’t look quite right.

Too many long balls over the top. Too many shots from outside the box. Not enough crisp passing between players forming triangles all over the field.

Did Italy’s defense take Spain out of their game? Probably not, as our algorithm ranks Italy’s defense 25th in the world. This isn’t the type of ranking one expects for a country famous for their catenaccio system.

Maybe it’s just Spain’s first game this tourney. Or maybe this core group of players is past its prime. We’ll find out in their next match against Ireland.

Spain’s odds to win Euro 2012 dropped from 22.6% to 21.5%. This is because Croatia beat Ireland today, putting them in control of this group with Italy and Spain. Croatia’s increased chance of making out of the group stage dropped Spain’s odds of advancing from 83% to 80%.

For our most updated win probabilities, click here to see our interactive bracket.

Thanks for reading.

Filed Under: Croatia National Football Team, Italy National Football Team, Republic of Ireland National Football Team, Soccer, Soccer Analytics, Spain National Football Team

Comments

  1. adam says

    June 11, 2012 at 1:20 am

    Like what you have done.

    Reply
    • Ed Feng says

      June 11, 2012 at 8:18 am

      Thanks, Adam!!

      Reply
  2. temple says

    June 11, 2012 at 1:30 pm

    Surprisingly little change for a draw, even with another country winning. Maybe coaches are right (or less wrong) to play conservative in the first match.

    Reply
    • Ed Feng says

      June 11, 2012 at 2:05 pm

      The situation might be different if that winning country weren’t Croatia, the worst team heading into Euro 2012. If the winning country were Germany, I’d expect a much bigger decrease in win probability.

      Reply
      • Marin says

        June 14, 2012 at 8:20 am

        hehe, my man. the worst team? I’m from Croatia, so I will try to explain with my lousy english something about Croatia. We are very different from the rest of the World by mentality. Unfortunately, sometimes that could be a problem. Most of the people do make bets on Croatia even odds are very good. Why? Everything depends about the “feeling” in the air. We can beat Brazil and with the same team lost from Albania. We don’t have continuity. But, we are like that in all sports. Goran Ivanisevic won Wimbledon at the time when he didn’t even have a chance to be in the tournament. Ivica Kostelic was 1. in skiing when everybody saw him as “ok, he is here just to have good names for advertising”. You see my point. We are very messy nation. So today, if our players woke up with feeling “f*** everybody, I feel good”, Italy probably will lost as 2:0 or 3:1. If they will start day with something else on their mind, we will loose with 3:0 for Italy. I love my country, but I really hate to watch any game, any sport where Croat or Croatia play because that day I will have a headache.

        Sorry one more time for my english, but I hope that you understood what I wanna say.

        Reply
        • Marin says

          June 14, 2012 at 8:22 am

          Wrong sentence. I wanna say: Most of the people do NOT make bets on Croatia even odds are very good.

          Reply
          • Ed Feng says

            June 14, 2012 at 3:12 pm

            Thanks for sharing from so far away from California. I’ll be sharing your thoughts with all readers of this blog.

  3. Morgan says

    June 11, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    Why is Croatia the worst team in the tournament? They were 8th in the FIFA world rankings and certainly dominated Ireland.

    Reply
    • Ed Feng says

      June 11, 2012 at 9:51 pm

      Morgan,

      Thanks for pointing that Croatia was ranked so highly in FIFA. Pre Euro 2012, we had Croatia ranked in the 40’s, even behind Poland. The main reason was that England put up a 9-2 goal differential in winning 2 World Cup qualifying games. Margin of victory matters in our rankings.

      Croatia is now up to 36th in our rankings and can certainly climb as Euro progresses. I’ll be keeping a close eye on them.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. What are Germany’s odds of winning Euro 2012 now that they own the Group of Death? says:
    June 13, 2012 at 8:04 pm

    […] we mentioned that Croatia was the worst team in Euro 2012, Morgan kindly pointed out their lofty status in those other rankings. A big reason why Croatia lands at 35th in our rankings […]

    Reply

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