This blog will start with simulating the 2018 FIFA World Cup 100 times using Football Manager 18(Thanks to @GoldenFM for creating the steam workshop file for the World Cup).
I will keep records for:
-Winner/Draw for each game
-How many times a team progresses to each round of the tournament
– Places 4th-1st
-Best player
-Highest goalscorer and their number of goals
After all 100 games, I will summarise some of the interesting happenings from the simulation and then look at some of the possible betting outcomes that could come from this.
Once the tournament starts I will track how the simulation compares to real life outcomes.
Let’s have a quick look at how things stand after 20 simulations:
Below you can see the number of times teams have finished first(blue) or second(green)
Not surprisingly Brazil is leading with 7 wins and came 2nd 3 times, meaning so far in this simulation they have been in 50% of the finals.
France coming in second with 4 wins, then surprisingly Croatia has won 3 times and been runners up twice. While Germany still hasn’t won.
This table shows how many times each team has qualified for the round of 16. England are the only team to qualify from each simulation, then France and Brazil have missed out once each. On the other end Costa Rica, Iran, Panama and Saudi Arabia are the teams who have failed to qualify 20 times and Iceland has got through only once.
In the group stages there has been some rather one sided matches
Uruguay vs Saudi Arabia is 20-0 in favour of the South Americans
Belgium and England hold 20-0 records over Panama , while Belgium vs England is one of the closest contests with Belgium winning 8 times, England winning 6 and having 6 draws.
Best player of the tournament has been won twice by Higuain(Arg), Alves(Bra), Hazard(Bel) and Neymar(Bra)
Higuain has also been the top goal scorer twice with 9 goals both times. Another Argentine was won the award twice as well, Sergio Aguero scored 7 and 6 goals in the simulations where he won.
The golden boot leader though is Harry Kane, taking out the award 3 times having scored 10, 10 and 8 goals.
I will do the next update when all 100 games have been completed.
If you want to get in touch drop me a line on twitter @Dave_Matteo
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