Chile gets no respect.
They won the South American championship over Brazil and Argentina in 2015. They won a special North and South American tournament in the US last year.
My numbers put them at 3rd in the world before the Confederations Cup, or the World Cup Light that FIFA holds the year before the actual World Cup. This tournament features the champions of each continent.
However, no one gave Chile a chance. The markets odds were +320, or about 24% win probability, and Chile got even less respect from commentators.
In the semi-final, Chile outplayed Portugal but the game remained scoreless after 120 minutes. Chile advanced by saving 3 straight penalty kicks against Portugal.
Now Chile faces Germany in the final on Sunday at 2pm Eastern. My numbers give the following probabilities for 90 minute regulation:
- 41% for Germany to win
- 31.5% for Chile to win
- 27.5% to tie
Chile is not the favorite. However, don’t be surprised to see them win the tourney, especially since many of Germany’s stars won’t play in this game.
And there’s reason to trust my world soccer numbers. A published research paper studied the predictions from my algorithm and found them quite worthy.
I wrote about the lessons learned from this study. It’s probably most interesting for the results on ensembles, which I use in my football predictions.
To check out the article, click here.
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