Summary after group stage


First of all I note that I've seen three different groups being referred to as "Group of Death". First group B having Chile, the third best team from South America, and the two finalists from 2010 in one group. Then group G was called group of death claiming that Ghana would be the best African team, US being the best CONCACAF team and Germany the best European team and Portugal having the best player in the world. Then I heard some people from the the Island claiming that Group D is "Group of Death" since it had three world champion nations. That is in my opinion the most ridiculous. Yes, it's true that Uruguay has won the cup twice but last time they won Elvis Presley was still a poor teenager that no one had heard of. The term Group of Death was coined 2002 and with this inflation rate all groups will be "Group of Death" within a decade or so. Yes, groups are difficult and you will play very skilled teams already in the group stage. It's the <insert arbitrary bomb word> world cup.

After the group stage it's interesting how the different confederations have done so far. One way to compare the confederations is to take all matches involving one team from a confederation, exclude draws (and matches between two teams from the same confederation) and count how many matches were won and lost, respectively.

Confederation	Wins	Loss	P
South America	13	3	0.004
Europe	13	9	0.28
North & Central America	5	4	0.51
Africa	3	9	0.14
Asia	0	9	0.004

Where a small P suggests that the confederation is not equal to rest of the world. Based on this South America is outstanding with only three losses and 5 of 6 teams advancing to knockout stage. One explanation could be that the tournament is held in South America, but that doesn't explain it all as if we remember last cup in South Africa all five South American teams advanced to quarter final except Chile who played Brazil in round of 16. No South American team was knocked out by a non-South American team before the quarter finals. If FIFA would consider to change the balance between confederations and they want it to reflect strengths of confederations, the first thing they should do is to give more seats to South America.

As impressive as as terrible have the Asian result been. Not one single victory and all four Asian teams finished last in the groups. FIFA's talk about increasing number of Asian teams is not motivated by their results. In 2010 two teams advanced to last 16 where they were knocked out, which is roughly what you can expect from a confederation with four teams.

The table below shows the chances for the remaining 16 teams

Country	Quart-inals	Semi-finals	Final	Champion
Brazil	81.7	66.7	49.1	39.3
Germany	90.1	67.4	29.8	19.7
Argentina	69.7	48	30.5	12
Netherlands	66.5	48.2	27.2	9.8
France	67.7	23.2	6.15	2.81
Colombia	50.2	12.2	5.02	2.46
Uruguay	49.8	12	4.91	2.39
United States	51	19.2	8.73	2.09
Belgium	49	18	8.03	1.87
Chile	18.3	9.14	3.74	1.82
Mexico	33.5	19.2	7.7	1.76
Greece	60.7	22.1	8.27	1.74
Switzerland	30.3	14.9	6.56	1.5
Costa Rica	39.3	10.6	2.98	0.442
Nigeria	32.3	6.77	1.03	0.301
Algeria	9.85	2.61	0.249	0.0482

and the figure below shows how the chances have evolved over time.

Most surprising teams so far are Costa Rica, Greece, and Mexico. Netherlands is the country that has increased their chances most (+5.6%).

May the best team win!