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Former Member

By next June soccer matches from the 2014 FIFA world cup Brazil will be the topic of discussions everywhere, we should be prepared to impress friends and family of our soccer knowledge.   Thanks to SAP Lumira let me give you some FUN facts that will come handy in a crowded room of fans watching a game or while trying to impress your colleagues or spouse.  Actually, let’s go even further; let’s use SAP Lumira with the FIFA World Cup data of tournaments since 1930 to suggest the Quarter finalists and even the semifinalists in 2014.  I should point out that is taken more time for me to write this blog than downloading, installing and using Lumira, good one SAP!!

Let’s start with the FUN Facts

  • Brazil was won more championships (5), scored more goals (210) and won more games (67) than any other team since 1930.  If you add to that the fact that the world cup 2014 is in Brazil and the beating that Brazil gave to Spain (champion 2010) a couple of weeks ago.   The champion in 2014 is very likely to be Brazil
  • If any of these teams are playing Germany, Italy or United Kingdom probably the game will end up in a draw.  Germany has the highest record with 21 draws, then Italy with 20 and UK with 18. 
  • Germany is experienced in long distance shots – they try to make goals from far and they are good at it.  A record of 165 shots from the wide area (outside the gol  area), they also have the record for
    • More shots from the goal area (310)
    • Played more matches than any team (99).  Meaning they often advanced to semifinals or quarterfinals
    • Make more corner kicks (126)
  • In 2010 I watch the world cup with a friend from Spain.  He was very concerned that the match was going to be decided by penalties, he thought Spain was not good at penalties.  Actually Spain is very good at it, the highest record of penalty goals (14).  Give some comfort to your Spaniards friends.
  • Mexico is not a good pick for the Semifinals or Quarterfinals.  In the history of world cups Mexico has lost more games than any other team (22).  They also have a high rate of goals against (82)… very high considering that they have not played as many matches like Germany and Brazil.  Due to the number of scoring goals against or in favor is likely that you will not be disappointed of a game against Mexico as there will be Goals for or against.

Semifinals

Let’s be very un-scientific and try to pick the 8 semifinalists, the data since 1930 is very limited but we can try. If you look at the sum of goals for add the sum of won games, then add championships won, best performers are the following 8 teams

  1. Brazil
  2. Germany
  3. Italy
  4. Argentina
  5. France
  6. Spain
  7. Uruguay
  8. Netherlands, Hungary with Sweden coming quite close

Just for fun I looked in the Fifa site to find out who is doing well in the qualifying games and Netherlands looks very strong.  So I go with Netherlands.

For the Quaterfinals if we compare the sum won games vs lost games and add teams that have won championships.  Then, look at the ones that have performed above average we see that the semifinal could be. 

  1. Brazil
  2. Germany
  3. Italy
  4. Argentina

Feel free to reach out to me if you would like to have the FIFA data file, I cleaned it up and I will be glad in sharing.  Maybe I will give the SAP Predictive tool a try a friend told me that I could potential do a Mutlivariate Regression Analysis with some statistical tool to do a better estimation, the name itself makes me to run away but maybe the SAP predictive tool will be as cool as Lumira.

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