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Computers pick Latin World Cup winners
Thursday, June 06 2002
by Andrew McLindon


Two different computer simulations have predicted that a South American team will
win the World Cup.

Researchers at the University of Ulster and the University of Warwick devised
programmes designed to predict which country will take football's ultimate prize
this summer. According to the University of Ulster, the winner will be Brazil,
while the University of Warwick selected Argentina. 

 

The University of Ulster's experiment took place before the kick-off of the World
Cup and used FIFA world rankings, the distance teams have had to travel to
compete, the effect of switching between Korea and Japan for games as well as the
rest period between matches, as the factors in its programme. The simulation was
run 2,000 times and came up with Brazil beating Italy in the final. 

 



It also predicted that the Republic of Ireland will finish as runners-up in its
group, but will be knocked-out in the second round by Spain. England will also
face a second-round exit at the hands of France.

 



The University also established a focus group of football buffs and it predicted
Argentina would defeat Italy to take the World Cup trophy. The group agreed with
the computer about the timing and nature of Ireland's and England's defeats. 

 



Dr Peter O'Donoghue, a lecturer in sport studies at the University of Ulster,
said that although the predictions were "a bit of fun," a research paper on
the relative merits of qualitative versus quantitative methods would be written
following the tournament. 

 



Meanwhile, the University of Warwick's programme, GARI (Glover Automated Results
Indicator), was commissioned by BBC Radio Five Live and is named after one of the
station's presenters. 

 

Devised by risk researchers, it rates teams on "strength," which quantifies how
the teams measure up against each other, and "patchiness," which charts the
unpredictability of a team. These estimates are then further adjusted using data
from FIFA and bookmakers. 

 

Argentina was GARI's favourite to win the World Cup before it kicked-off with a
13.2 percent chance and is now up to 16 percent after the programme was revised
to take into account results up until June 03. The second favourite, according to
GARI, is Brazil with 11 percent. 

 

GARI rates Ireland's chances of finishing second in its group at 35 percent and
of progressing to the quarter-finals at 14 percent. It gives Ireland just a 4
percent of winning the World Cup. 

 

The programme was originally devised privately by Henry Scott, a director of the
Financial Decisions Research Group at the University of Warwick, in order to help
win an office sweepstake.