Day Twelve - The Heavyweights!
France and Argentina both playing today with Norway and Senegal, looking to settle out the group
Yesterday was a rough one, and I would rather talk about that honestly than skip past it to today’s picks. Two days ago I was in here telling you we had just edged ahead of the market. Yesterday handed most of that back. So before the card, a few words on why this happens, because I think the reason is more interesting than the scoreline.
Yesterday
Groups G and H played their second round, and the day did not go our way.
Spain beat Saudi Arabia 4-0, which is exactly the winner we called, but our one published bet was the Under 2.5 goals, and Spain blew the roof off it inside an hour. New Zealand and Egypt was the game we flagged as the place we most disagreed with the market. We had Egypt around 40 percent, the market had them at 60, and the market was right. Egypt won 3-1. Belgium and Iran finished 0-0, another favorite we leaned on that did not deliver. And Uruguay, a side full of pedigree, were held to a 2-2 draw by Cape Verde, a nation of half a million people at their first ever World Cup.
On the measure we care about most, the Brier score, that day pulled us back from a narrow lead to a virtual tie with the market. We sit at 0.566, the market at 0.567. Two days ago Ecuador’s collapse handed us the edge. Yesterday took most of it back. That is the honest state of it.
Why the days swing like this
Here is the thing I keep coming back to. International football is the hardest forecasting problem in the sport, and these up-and-down days are baked into it.
Start with the obvious. These players are not turning out for a club they get paid by every week. They are playing for their country, often in the biggest match of their lives, in front of everyone back home. That raises the floor of the underdog and lowers the ceiling of the favorite in ways no rating can fully capture. Cape Verde against Uruguay is the cleanest example you will find. On paper it is a mismatch. On the night, one side is playing the game of their lives and the other is a heavy favorite who only needs a point. The gap on the field is nothing like the gap on paper.
Then there is the data, or the lack of it. Club teams play fifty-plus games a year, season after season, and the numbers pile up until a model can see a team clearly. International sides barely play. We get a real, high-quality look at these teams maybe a handful of times every couple of years, and a proper tournament like this only comes around every four. So when Cape Verde or Curaçao or New Zealand shows up in better form than their history suggests, there is simply less evidence to lean on, and every model in the world, ours and the market’s included, is working with thinner information than it would ever accept in club football.
And the last piece is just rarity. We almost never see these specific matchups. Cape Verde versus Uruguay is not a fixture anyone has a long book on. There is no decade of meetings to study, no rhythm to the rivalry, nothing to tell you how one of these sides tends to rise to the other. You are pricing a game that has, in effect, never been played. Some nights that uncertainty breaks toward the favorite. Some nights it breaks toward the minnow. Yesterday it broke toward the minnows, and we wore it.
None of that is an excuse. It is the texture of the thing we are trying to forecast, and the swing days are the price of admission.
Who is winning this thing
We still re-run the whole tournament ten thousand times after every result. Argentina remain the clear favorite at around 27 percent, France a clear second, and then a wide, bunched pack behind them. The teams quietly winning their groups are pulling away, and the ones stumbling, Belgium among them after two draws, are sliding back into the chase.
Today’s card
Groups I and J take their second turn. Four games.
France vs Iraq is where our one published play sits. France are enormous favorites and we do not argue the winner, but with qualification already in sight we think they ease off and this stays lower-scoring than the market expects. The Under 2.5 shows the value, but only because the market massively underweights it.
Norway vs Senegal is the one to actually watch. France beating Iraq would settle the top of the group, which turns this into a straight shootout for second place. We have it close to a coin flip, Haaland and Norway just ahead of a Senegal side that played far better than the scoreline against France.
Argentina vs Austria, we side with Argentina and so does everyone, with Messi one goal from the all-time World Cup record for company. No edge worth taking.
The game where we part with the market is Jordan vs Algeria. Both lost their openers, both have to win, and the market makes Algeria a clear 62 percent favorite. We have it far tighter than that. If you want to see where our read and the market’s read pull apart today, that is the one. We find out tonight who was closer.
More tomorrow.