An otherwise thrilling group stage of the 2018 World Cup ended with a whimper as the English and Belgians danced a Brussels waltz around the pitch on Thursday, but the excitement revs back up again this weekend when the knockout rounds begin. These games, which run through Tuesday afternoon, begin the single-elimination bracket-style games where tied matches go to extra time and even penalty kicks if needed. A swarm of world cup experts from North America and the UK convened on Friday afternoon to look at the first set of games in the round of 16.
One important consideration when looking at that chart is to understand that even with extra time and penalty kicks played at the end of tie games, for the purposes of sports books wagers are settled after the completion of regulation play (plus any injury stoppage time). Thus for this swarm, each game comes with three potential outcomes rather than two. That means in practical purposes that a 60% probability of a predicted outcome of one team or another winning is much stronger than it might appear – because there are two other outcomes that split the remaining 40%.
And even so, the chart above is pretty unequivocal in showing the most confident prediction for the swarm in this first set of knockout round matches as the Red Devils of Belgium defeating the Blue Samurai of Japan. The Belgian side is incredibly deep through the midfield and forwards, and they remain something of a “wise-guy” pick to win the Cup outright on that basis. For their part, Japan shocked the world and delighted their fans by advancing to the final 16 as perhaps the most surprising team to come through.
Of all the first round matches, the only one the swarm put their highest indication of confidence on was Belgium, as shown in the replay above. That prediction of a two-goal win is by far the leading indicator over everything else of a swarm’s conviction on a forecast. The swarm further separated this pick from the rest in the opening round by attaching a strong 80% confidence that the Belgian side will win this match in regulation full-time, a strong probability demonstrating that any other outcome would be the biggest upset of the round.
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