Saxo Strats’ 2022 World Cup Predictions: Second Update

Adjustments were justified

We make five adjustments to the Elo rating: Elo momentum (1-year), Misery Index, European cup win bias, shrinkage, and squad dynamics. In this second update we have only adjusted our squad dynamic factor to reflect what we have seen in the matches so far. When the group stage is done we will update the current Elo rating and the Elo momentum in addition to a new squad dynamic adjustment before we run the 10,000 simulations again. This simulation will lead to our third update and predictions for the knockout stage. Following that prediction we will update our predictions at each new round of the knockout stage until the day before the final.

As said we were criticised for our non-consensus predictions and especially our Danish bias. While the adjustment to the Danish team created a too optimistic prediction some of our other adjustments have proved to be validated. Our downward adjustments to Argentina have proved correct given the two matches and if we remove Messi, the Argentina team is quite mediocre. We also lifted Spain and Portugal in our adjustments which have proved correct. We were harsh on Belgium in our squad dynamic adjustment giving the team the largest reduction in Elo score based on this factor; this proved correct as the team has slipped from a strong outsider to a team nobody believes in. We were too tough on France due to their injuries ahead of the tournament and we have removed their penalty in the squad dynamic adjustment.

Financial Times brings today an article World Cup briefing: Ghana win shows flaws in Fifa rankings in which the authors discuss the flaws of ratings as Ghana has clearly been underestimated. This is exactly why we added a shrinkage factor to our adjustments. The shrinkage factor shrinks Elo ratings closer to the average making the teams more equal, which fit better with the high variance nature of the game. Also remember that the Elo rating convergences to the true skill level after around 30 games, but as a result of football being a high variance game the prediction error will be quite sizeable over just three matches and thus Elo ratings will over- and underestimated the true strength and weakness of teams.