World Cup Preview, Part 4

Groups J, K, and L

It’s time for some of the most fun and random soccer of the 4 year cycle! Where your mental stereotypes of Norway, Egypt, Japan and New Zealand get tested on the pitch and a whistle on a handball from a ref from El Salvador decides the fate of Spain’s title push! It’s the World Cup! Preview coming up, but first…

World Cup Fantasy, For the Not-So-Big Bucks

If you are interested in playing a World Cup salary game I created, either comment or message me here or email me at dustinw100@gmail.com. You have $100 fake dollars to pick 6 teams who score points based on wins and draws in group stage plus points for winning each knockout round.

You will have to trust me with a real $10 entry fee via PayPal or something similar with the winner taking all, unless we get 10+ people (at ~9 right now), then second gets a cut. Will be fun and the salaries are created to be as fair as possible so no Odds Wizards/Research Junkies get a big edge. Just a fun way to play along if interested! I have already make my picks and will let you know my squad as soon as you send me yours so I don’t get an advantage.

Click Here To See The Sheet and Lineup Builder!

Example of highest salary teams, Jordan at $8 is the cheapest.

What this will be

-a classic Saturdays Secret Sauce* breakdown of how teams have played, adjusted for schedule (ELO score here).

-full of the creative writing, analysis and analogies that show up here ever so sporadically to separate this site from the 90th percentile Claude analysis you will be able to get pretty soon.

-my favorite picks I will be “investing” in, since last World Cup I came out pretty well using this strategy and betting on the groups. Do not take betting advice as investment advice, if you want to make money with your money go put it on the stock market or bonds. I like betting on the World Cup and soccer in general as it gives me extra focus on the matches, adds entertainment and is a puzzle to try and figure out. I think it makes the pieces I write better, but I am a losing sports better overall and do not recommend blindly tailing me. It’s just explaining my thought process and how I use this research.

*giving teams a performance score for each match based on xG^, shots, deep touches, possession, and a bit more in these cases (corners and shots on target) since I don’t have nearly as detailed data

^when available

What this will not be

-player focused, I do not have the analysis skills to even judge 20% of the players in the World Cup and you do not have the reading and memorization skills to keep Iran’s key players in mind…also like 20% of the time they get benched or are minor parts of the team at the World Cup anyway. Last World Cup I was very successful simply looking at how the national teams had played in the 12-18 months leading up to the World Cup and assuming that would be mirrored going forward

-I will not be diving too much into the context of the matchups leading up. If there’s an early red card or they played a putrid minnow (Niger, Somalia, San Marino, Hong Kong, etc) I toss it out. If it’s a friendly or a meaningless qualifier, I leave it in. Good cases for weighting, but just not enough of a sample or a guaranteed return so we are just rolling averages here.

-focused on the knockout matchups: when we get there, we get there. Betting on how teams will run after the Group Stage takes an even higher rake and a great ability to read matchups and opponent quality well beyond the group.

-too much ranting against the format. 32 of the 48 teams advancing to a straight knockout is simply absurd. There are essentially no stakes on the group stage for the top teams, why can’t we have 24 make it from a 4 or 5 game Swiss-format group stage with minor benefits in qualifying for the bottom teams to keep them incentivized and byes to keep the top teams pushing hard…too simple I guess? Now we will see tons of teams rest players in the final group match I think as it’s unclear you will get a much easier opponent from 1st vs 2nd and you have to play anyway.

Group G

Average ELO Rank Among WC Teams: 21.5, 2nd best group

Highest ranked team: Argentina at 3

The Analogy: Anybody Assuming An Analogy for this Amalgamation of Associations must Account for the Ähnlich Alpha….they all start with A except for Jordan, was the point of that laborious and ultimately unsatisfying jaunt.

The teams in this group are really just not really tested over the past two years. Starting with Argentina, they have played Honduras, Mauritania, Angola, Puerto Rico and Zambia in their past 6 matches in what has to be some kind of payoff for someone somewhere right? Corrupt officials paying to get Messi to come somehow? Because these are not serious opponents for a team that is trying to go back to back in Messi’s last hurrah. They have played at low speed and low intent during these matches: 7 shots vs Mauritania, 9 vs Zambia, 8 vs Angola. Is that worrying? It’s hard to say besides it’s worrying they haven’t been tested by World Cup quality teams recently. In WC qualifying they were also pretty low action: 12.5 shots for and 6.5 shots against in the 7 games vs South American teams.

Algeria do sort of similar things to Argentina but with just a good defense instead of elite, and against an even worse schedule. They do have a truly worrying result (outshot 13-3, out box touched 41-10) against Nigeria which most of the very good teams simply do not have at all on their resume. A win and a reasonable performance vs Netherlands a few days ago should give Algeria some confidence they can compete with Argentina, Austria and more.

Austria and Jordan have similar shot ratios vs similar opposition but do it very differently. 60% possession and a big box touch edge for Austria vs a much less territorially dominant team in Jordan. Austria haven’t had under 50% possession or more than 14 shots since last March as they want a controlled, pretty low event type of match. Jordan don’t have over 50% possession in any of their 8 matches covered by my stats but still can get their shots off (12 each off 31% possession vs Tunisia and Switzerland, 15 off 35% possession vs Russia, for example). Both will be happy with Austria having a bit of the ball when they matchup. Austria have played South Korea as their best opponent over the past 2 years (outshot 11-5) and were outshot 34-26 in 3 matches against Tunisia and Romania, their next toughest opponents since the 2-legged tie vs Serbia, a pair of matches they are still hanging their hats on. There is not really a case they are even an average WC team.

The Picks: Austria to finish last at 10, Jordan to finish 2nd at 14 and Algeria to win the group at 8.5. I am gravitating toward the high odds picks, I assume that tells me something about my process is wrong but we are too deep in, time to hope for a few flukes to establish my gambling bonafides.

Group K

Average ELO Rank Among WC Teams: 20.5, 3rd best group

Highest ranked team: Portugal at 6

The Analogy: You’ve got a Malick and a Kieslowski movie to choose from at the top, but Naked Gun and Rocky IV are a bit tempting and a bit more enjoyable than you think at first glance at 3 and 4.

Portugal has serious firepower. Only France and Spain have averaged more than Portugal’s 18.9 shots. And fitting for a team with Bruno and Ronaldo they are certainly aggressive at deciding to shoot. There might be a bit of worry about how the attack will hold up against elite opponents: in 6 matches against teams above average WC level they are averaging just under 12 shots and are about level in terms of box touches. They do seem set up to bludgeon with their attack but let them get enough chances to make it entertaining: the highest team in term of total action we’ve seen so far. A good example are a couple matches vs Ireland and Hungary that saw Portugal with 44 shots and 4.1 non-pen xG and their opponents with 31 and 3.8. Let’s hope we see action like that from one of the more aggressive and talented teams in the tournament.

It’s a pretty good group, Colombia’s production and performance is just a few points off of the more fancied South American sides of Argentina and Brazil. 13 shots on target for vs 15 shots against for Colombia in 3 matches vs Argentina, Brazil and France over the past 2 years is proof positive of their quality vs title contenders. A true bludgeoning of Australia (28-1 box touches for) could be evidence they can sweep away any also-rans in their path…but there are a lot of just solid/average performances mixed in against solid/average sides like Veneuzela, Canada, Paraguay and Bolivia that keeps you from getting too carried away. But this is a powerhouse team to be 2nd in a group.

There’s no real awful 4th team either. Uzbekistan and DR Congo both feel like “3rd teams” in a way. Close to par in both shots and box touches against decent schedules, they are not pushovers. Clearly worse than the top 2 (see how Senegal were clearly superior to DR Congo over 2 matches 51-27 box touches and 26-16 shots and Uzebkistan outshot 30-19 by Iran over 2 matches) but you can’t just disregard them. There aren’t too many truly bad performances by either one and are comfortable playing with low possession already. No statistical research really but I feel like high possession teams who play easy schedules (see Qatar) are more at risk than teams already used to this style.

The Picks: Colombia to finish 4th at 17, DRC to win the group at 21 and Uzbekistan to finish 2nd at 8.5. All basically long shots believing that the bottom two are better than we think.

Group L

Average ELO Rank Among WC Teams: 22.5, 7th best group

Highest ranked team: England at 4

The Analogy: The big bad Empire at the top, clearly the best, looking down on a scrap for the remaining places.

We have England here, who deserves to be grouped with France and Spain as one of the great title contenders. They have consistently dominated under par competition and have blown away the last 5 solid WC level teams they have played in Serbia 2x, Uruguay, Wales and Japan. Possession easily into the 60s and a 32-6 shots on target over those matches plus a 38-10 corner edge. You better play a lot better than just average World Cup if you want to be competitive at all vs England. The only real question is how will they do when they run into another truly great team who can keep them from controlling and dominating the game, I just think that list is really small: France, Spain, Germany and maybe Portugal? I think basically that second level teams Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Morocco, etc will not be able to outplay England and certainly no one in this group.

Croatia is not ‘Croatia’ of old, though even those Croatia teams were probably not viewed as contenders either. They do not really repress opponents well at all, allowing 5 shots on target per match over the 10 matches in the sample. France got 14 over 2 matches sure, but Montenegro 5 in their match and Faroe Islands 7 in 2. Croatia will be at risk of conceding against Ghana and Panama for sure. Their attack is pretty strong though and they are a high-action side who likes to hold the ball: 57 and 55% possession vs Belgium and Brazil in their last two matches. They are one of just 7 teams with 20+ box touches both for and against, 6 of them come from Europe which I think shows the international game is just played at a higher tempo and intent in Europe. There are 13 teams who average under 20 in both categories, none from Europe. Though that also might show the spread in talent and excessively large groups in qualifying, though I did try to filter out games vs absolute Gibraltar/Andorra style minnows.

Panama have not played much of a schedule at all since last summer when they saw USA, Mexico and Brazil. Those 3 games went as expected with 12 box touches for vs 33 against, though they did get 9 SOT vs Brazil and 4 vs Mexico. They are quick on the trigger, the team with the 5th highest ratio of shots to box touches in the tournament. Panama could easily fit as a 4th team in a group but for Ghana,

Ghana have played a tough schedule for the full stat coverage, but that’s all you can really say in their favor. They didn’t even qualify for AFCON so have a thin resume of just 6 matches but have gotten crushed in 5 of the 7 (even matches vs Bosnia and Herzegovina and South Korea the only rays of hope). In their easier matches they don’t look much better: South Africa had 63% possession and over 60% box touch ratio, outplayed at home vs Mali, outshot by Chad and Comoros. This is just a totally broken team really, getting by on past glory. In AFCON qualifying for last winter's tournament Ghana scored 3 total goals in 6 matches against Angola, Sudan and Niger and didn’t win a match. Everything around Ghana looks like one of the worst 5 or 6 teams in the tournament and they are not at all priced like it.

The Picks: Big bites at England to win the group at 1.4, Ghana to finish 4th at 3.1 and a small bite at Panama to finish 2nd at 8.

Let me know what you think and any requests, comments or criticisms. I appreciate the comments, likes and shares very much. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy reading as much as I do putting this together and learning.