Perhaps more than any recent World Cup, this year’s competition in Qatar has thrown up considerable surprises. Who indeed, of the analytics crowd, could have predicted Saudi Arabia would defeat Argentina the way it did, or competition-favourite Brazil would end up losing to Croatia? Meanwhile, Morocco has stunned commentators by becomingthe first African nation to reach semi-finals. Now, almost a week away from the final, speculation is about who will win the game is at its apex. Is there any way we could predict the results better than we did by “following the science”?
