Looking Back at South Africa: Analyzing and Reviewing the 2010 FIFA World Cup

• Activity Number: 154
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Monday, July 30, 2012 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: JSM 2012 Host Local Chapter - San Diego
• Author(s): Roland Deutsch*+
• Companies: The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• Keywords: FIFA World Cup ; Simulation study ; Logistic regression ; Bookmaker Odds ; p-value ; Ranking systems

Abstract

The FIFA World Cup is the world's largest single sports event and its world-wide impact is only rivaled by the Olympic Games. We analyze the impact of the World Cup draw on the different teams using 4 common rating systems for International Football. Based on the rating systems a statistical model to simulate the outcome of any game at the World Cup was developed and then used in extensive simulation runs. These simulation runs enable us to not only determine the impact of the draw on the 32 finalists, but to also allows us to look at the surprises and upsets of the tournament as well as evaluating each team's performance.

The simulation studies reveal that the draw leveled the field more than expected. The biggest surprise were delivered by Uruguay, while the Italian team was most disappointing. Most surprising results of the World Cup happened almost exclusively in the group stage, with only minor upset in the knock-out round. The US team accomplished its goal of reaching the second round, but a deeper run was quite probable.