THE POWER RANK

World football/soccer predictions for September 22-27, 2022

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These predictions come from my world soccer/football rankings that take the score in games and adjust for strength of schedule.

United States

These are two neutral site games in Europe.

United States vs Japan – United States has a 39.1% chance to win. Japan has a 32.8% chance to win. There is a 28.1% chance for a tie.

United States vs Saudi Arabia – United States has a 55.0% chance to win. Saudi Arabia has a 17.3% chance to win. There is a 27.6% chance for a tie.

Mexico

These games are in California, but I consider them home games for El Tri.

Mexico hosting Peru – Mexico has a 46.6% chance to win. Peru has a 26.7% chance to win. There is a 26.7% chance for a tie.

Mexico hosting Colombia – Mexico has a 35.3% chance to win. Colombia has a 33.1% chance to win. There is a 31.5% chance for a tie.

UEFA Nations League

Croatia hosting Denmark – Croatia has a 39.1% chance to win. Denmark has a 34.5% chance to win. There is a 26.4% chance for a tie.

Belgium hosting Wales – Belgium has a 72.8% chance to win. Wales has a 9.9% chance to win. There is a 17.4% chance for a tie.

Italy hosting England – Italy has a 44.0% chance to win. England has a 24.7% chance to win. There is a 31.2% chance for a tie. The markets will be stronger on England than my numbers.

Spain hosting Switzerland – Spain has a 58.3% chance to win. Switzerland has a 19.2% chance to win. There is a 22.5% chance for a tie.

Poland hosting Netherlands – Poland has a 29.8% chance to win. Netherlands has a 46.0% chance to win. There is a 24.2% chance for a tie.

Wales hosting Poland – Wales has a 45.7% chance to win. Poland has a 27.4% chance to win. There is a 26.8% chance for a tie.

Denmark hosting France – Denmark has a 37.3% chance to win. France has a 34.6% chance to win. There is a 28.1% chance for a tie.

Netherlands hosting Belgium – Netherlands has a 39.3% chance to win. Belgium has a 38.2% chance to win. There is a 22.5% chance for a tie.

England hosting Germany – England has a 55.6% chance to win. Germany has a 21.3% chance to win. There is a 23.1% chance for a tie.

Portugal hosting Spain – Portugal has a 44.9% chance to win. Spain has a 30.1% chance to win. There is a 25.0% chance for a tie.

Ukraine vs Scotland – Ukraine has a 47.7% chance to win. Scotland has a 25.4% chance to win. There is a 26.9% chance for a tie. Neutral site game in Poland because, you know, war.

Football betting with a PhD edge

I started The Power Rank over a decade ago based on the mathematics from my Stanford PhD. The strength of schedule adjustments are just as useful in college football and the NFL as international football/soccer.

In my free email newsletter, I send football betting information that is:

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While the primary focus is the NFL and college football, I will also send out parts of my 2022 World Cup predictions.

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7-Nugget Saturday, June 4, 2022

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Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.

NBA analytics from Drew Dinsick – To handicap the NBA, quantitative bettor Drew Dinsick uses a player based model.

He combines an ensemble of player based projections with his own estimates of playing time. One of the player based models is DARKO, whose creator Kostya Medvedovsky made an appearance on The Football Analytics Show podcast. This player model makes Boston -2.5 over Golden State on a neutral court.

During the 2021-22 season, the home team beat opponents by an average of 1.72 points. Home court is larger in the playoffs, but even a large estimate of 2.5 points leads to a pick ’em prediction for Boston at Golden State. The markets closed Golden State -3.5 for Game 1.

NBA Finals Game 2 – The shocking outcome from Game 1 wasn’t that Boston won a game at Golden State, it’s how they dominated the fourth quarter. From ESPN Stats and Info, the Celtics are the first team in NBA history to win a Finals game by double digits after trailing by at least ten entering the final frame.

While the Celtics are notoriously defensive-minded, Cleaning the Glass pointed out how well their shots went down. These percentiles are among all playoff games this season.

  • 62.9% effective field goal rate (eFG%) is 91st percentile.
  • 51.2% three point field goal percentage is 95th percentile.
  • 114.1 points per 100 halfcourt plays is 89th percentile.

What might this trend mean for Game 2? For these playoffs, Boston ranks sixth in eFG% while Golden State is second. Jayson Tatum had a down game per his box score numbers, but so did Draymond Green.

Sports books are expecting the Warriors to bounce back, as Golden State is -4 as of Saturday morning.

World Soccer Predictions – These predictions for regulation time are based on my world soccer rankings that take game results and adjust for opponent with The Power Rank algorithm. The ranks quoted below refer to these team rankings.

  • Ukraine at Wales, World Cup Qualifying – Wales has a 46.7% chance to win. Ukraine has a 26.1% chance to win. There is a 27.2% chance for a tie. Ukraine (23rd) got the supposed upset at Scotland (46th) to make it to this elimination match. However, it will be much more difficult against a solid Wales side (21st).
  • Uruguay at United States, Friendly – United States has a 41.7% chance to win. Uruguay has a 27.9% chance to win. There is a 30.4% chance for a tie. The United States (16th) looked solid in a 3-0 win over Morocco (24th). However, it’s always tough against South American teams, and Uruguay (13th) beat Mexico 3-0 earlier this week.
  • England at Hungary, UEFA Nations League – Hungary has a 13.7% chance to win. England has a 62.0% chance to win. There is a 24.3% chance for a tie. England rocketed up to 6th in my world rankings after making the final of Euro 2021. They should take care of business on the road at Hungary (43rd).

The world soccer rankings are now updated daily based on the most recent matches.

College Baseball – Regionals began Friday for the NCAA Tournament and Tennessee is a massive favorite to win the College World Series (-600 to win its regional per FanDuel and +250 to win the National Championship, with second place listed at 6/1).

As always, path matters when picking winners of a tournament, and if you need help handicapping which teams have the easiest/hardest journey to the end, Parker Fleming has compiled probabilities for every regional with breakdowns of team strengths/weaknesses.

One team that stood out when pouring over his breakdowns was Virginia Tech (10/1 on FanDuel, higher odds than the 12/1 earlier this week). Not only do they have an easier regional, the super regional they are paired with is more of a toss-up with Florida, Oklahoma and Liberty all in contention.

Predicting the NBA – While the Warriors were favorites in Game 1, many analytic models like ESPN’s BPI and FiveThirtyEight suggested going in the other direction, taking the Celtics as outright winners.

However, data scientist Walker Harrison tweeted a thread about how if you had bet against FiveThirtyEight all season, you would have earned a 20-30% return on investment. Harrison did stress though the importance of their model, saying once you remove its home court bias, there are ways to use those predictions for value.

However, we should challenge the assumption that a team’s number-one goal for any regular-season game is to win. Many coaches tweak lineup combinations and want to acquire enough different data as possible so that they know their options when the playoffs arrive. It’s perhaps one reason why Golden State projections seemed intuitively lower during their dynasty.

Hockey Trends – This week, I made an appearance on the All the Kings Men podcast to discuss the analytics of hockey. Topics included:

  • why expected goals are useful in predicting the future
  • newer stats being devised to isolate an individual skater’s ability
  • the philosophy behind tweaking lines

Shopping for the best price – The standard advice says to have multiple accounts and shop for the best price. If you want to bet the Dodgers moneyline against the Mets, -140 is a better price than -150 (break even probability of 58.3% and 60.0% respectively).

But have you thought deeper about why you should shop for the best price? As Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow explain in The Logic of Sports Betting, it’s better to think about both sides of this bet.

Let’s suppose you find one book with Dodgers -140 and another with Mets +140. The combination of these two bets gives a no hold market. You can bet $140 on the Dodgers and $100 on the Mets and end up with your original $240 no matter the result.

Compare this with the typical -110 to bet either side of a spread. Wagering $110 on each side guarantees a loss of $10, and that’s the hold of the sports book.

Shopping for the best price means lowering the hold of the sports book. To learn more about this, check out page 81 of…

Free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting

In their foundational book, Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow provide the ultimate introduction into the sports betting world. In addition to the crucial concept of a no hold market, they write about:

  • The surprisingly simple procedure that market making sports books use to determine the spread (it’s not analytics)
  • The truth about parlays

To get a free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting, sign up for The Power Rank’s free email newsletter. Valuable. Concise. Entertaining. Those are the goals with each correspondence.

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Italy at England, Euro 2021 Final Prediction

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Do you remember the college football Game of the Century?

In 2011, LSU and Les Miles traveled to Alabama and Nick Saban in a match up of undefeated college football teams. This prime time game featured the top 2 teams in the BCS rankings.

Do you remember how the game turned out?

LSU won 9-6 in overtime as neither team scored a touchdown or broke 300 yards of offense.

In 2021, the Euro final between Italy and England should have a similar defensive flavor. By my calculations, Italy and England have the 2nd and 4th best defenses in the world based on matches since the beginning of 2016.

Let’s say you’re new to soccer, and you’ve been hearing about these exciting Euro matches like Spain vs Croatia and France vs Switzerland that have made hearts stop around the world. You want to check out the final on Sunday.

This is not going to be a great game for you. England vs Italy will be like reading Dickens aloud on a first date.

The defensive nature of the affair does offer some betting value. My numbers imply a 73% chance of under 2.5 goals. DraftKings has a price of -195, a break even probability of 66% that has already risen since it opened.

Which team will win Euro? My numbers give a slight edge to England at 57% to win.

This prediction gives England a home advantage for a game played in London. In the book Scorecasting, Jon Wertheim and Toby Moskowitz identify unconscious referee bias as one factor in home advantage. The man does eventually need to leave Wembley in a city full of England fans.

In the semi-final against Denmark, England scored the winning goal after a penalty shot award by the referee. While the contact on Raheem Sterling in real time was clear, the replay suggested a lack of force in this contact.

The Italians are just as likely to go down after soft contact in the box. But the location of this game tilts the odds that England will get a critical decision that could decide the game.

Regulation probabilities (90 minutes plus stoppage time): England hosting Italy: England has a 41.0% chance to win. Italy has a 26.7% chance to win. There is a 32.3% chance for a tie.

Data driven betting information

This article was featured in The Power Rank’s email newsletter. In a recent revamping of the newsletter, I’m striving for content that is:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

While most of these emails will focus on American football, I do plan to use my world soccer numbers to analyze World Cup qualifiers over the next year.

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Euro 2020 played in 2021 semi-final computer predictions

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These predictions are based on my world football/soccer rankings that take game results over a 5 year period and adjust for strength of schedule. These predictions assume reversion to the team mean over recent history.

England hosting Denmark

England has a 49.4% chance to win. Denmark has a 22.1% chance to win. There is a 28.5% chance for a tie. This assumes a reduced home advantage because of reduced capacity at Wembley Stadium in London.

Probability of over 2.5 goals is 0.350. Probability of under 2.5 goals is 0.650.

Spain vs Italy

Spain has a 40.1% chance to win. Italy has a 32.2% chance to win. There is a 27.7% chance for a tie.

Probability of over 2.5 goals is 0.422. Probability of under 2.5 goals is 0.578.

England, narrative vs numbers

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England came into Euro 2020 with a wealth of attacking talent. These players include:

  • Harry Kane, 23 goals for Tottenham this past season
  • Raheem Sterling, who has averaged over 16 goals the past 4 seasons with Manchester City
  • Jadon Sancho, a player Manchester United recently emptied an armored truck to obtain

However, this wealth of attacking talent is not consistent with my numbers. Let me explain.

For world soccer, I take matches since the beginning of 2016 and adjust for schedule with my ranking algorithm. These rankings for the offense and defense of each nation let me make predictions for matches.

For England, my numbers like their defense (4th in the world) compared to their offense (12th). The results in Euro (4 goals scored, 0 goals allowed in 4 matches) support that England has a better defense.

To understand this discrepancy between talent and results, I talked with Mike Goodman, Senior Soccer Editor at CBS, on the podcast this week. He explained that England plays a conservative style that keeps their midfielders focused on defense. In addition, Sancho has played 7 minutes in this tournament.

England keeps players back and hopes for the best with their offensive talent. This conservative strategy is like if Scarlett Johannson showed up at the Black Widow premier in baggy sweats. Not exactly putting yourself out there.

Against Ukraine, my numbers give a 64% chance of fewer than 2.5 goals. Ukraine is neither strong on offense or defense, and my model predicts 0.63 goals for them, the biggest factor in the high probability for the under.

On DraftKings, you can find a price of -127 (56% break even probability) for under 2.5 goals in England vs Ukraine.

England doesn’t play a beautiful game like Spain and Italy, nations with the skill to string together multiple passes in finding scoring opportunities. Instead, England is more likely to kick the ball over the top and use their athleticism to create opportunities.

If you take England’s style to the extreme, they are like Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Greek Freak dominates the NBA with his athleticism. However, he often lacks skill, as he has missed the rim on multiple free throws during the playoffs.

No matter how they play, two factors favor England:

  • They can not play other favorites Belgium, Italy and Spain until the final.
  • The semi-final and final in London will give them home field advantage.

While there is no guarantee, England is the favorite to win the European Championship.

Data driven betting information

This article was featured in The Power Rank’s email newsletter. In a recent revamping of the newsletter, I’m striving for content that is:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

While most of these emails will focus on American football, I do plan to use my world soccer numbers to analyze World Cup qualifiers over the next year.

To get this information delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”