After Quarterfinals

In 2010 it was Ghana that almost created history. They were stopped by a penalty over the bar, or they had been the first African country in final four. Costa Rica wouldn't have been the first CONCACAF country in final four as the USA came third back in 1930. Yet it had been quite historical with first time a country outside Europe, South America, and host nation, would have reached semi final since 1930. Instead we have the two giants from South America, Brazil and Argentina, take on Germany and Holland. All four semifinalists are actually ranked top 5, so this outcome was one of the most expected one. And with ranking I mean the Football Elo Ranking, not the FIFA ranking, which no one can take seriously. Only surprise is that second ranked Spain had such an early exit.

The model predicts the most likely final will be between Brazil and Argentina, which some people probably would call the "dream final". Well that would be first time we have a World Cup Final without a European team since the legendary final in 1950. Smaller libraries have been written about that match, when Uruguay stole the title in front of a whole nation. And it seems that still today, five world cup title later, Brazilians are mourning that loss. I'm pretty sure winning the world cup against arch rival Argentina would help.

We should, however, remember the model takes no consideration at all about players' status and so on, so the fact that Brazil's most important player seems to be out and one of Argentina's best players besides Messi might be out as well should increase the chances for Germany and Holland.

Summary After Round of 16

Remarkably all group winners won the first knockout round. We also notice that six of the eight predicted group winners made it the quarterfinals. Only England and Spain failed. With that in mind it's hard to claim, as some do, that this is the world cup of many upsets. Not really. Only two surprises (Costa Rica and Holland) in the quarterfinals is unexpectedly predictable. And then we've counted Holland as a surprise.
I hear from some corners of the world that the rules in the World Cup are complicated and that it's strange that one can lose a match in the group and still advance to the knockout stage. Well I guess `complicated' is a relative term, but try to explain to someone uninitiated the rules deciding which teams in Serie B are playing the playoff for promotion to Serie A, or the wildcard system in NFL, or the selection criteria for the Mad March bracket.

This being the ninth World Cup I follow (although I only remember a Polish corner kick from World Cup in Spain) I'm willing to say that the quarterfinals typically the most entertaining and memorable matches. Who can for example forget France vs Brazil '86 or Brazil vs Holland '94? 

Here follows the estimated chances the remaining eight teams have to reach the different stages:

Country	Quarter-final	Semi-final	Final	Champion
Brazil	100	81.5	58.9	45.5
Germany	100	70.5	27.5	17.1
Argentina	100	69.3	41.3	14.9
Netherlands	100	77.7	40.7	13.4
Colombia	100	18.5	7.14	3.19
France	100	29.5	6.47	2.68
Belgium	100	30.7	12.5	2.57
Costa Rica	100	22.3	5.51	0.705

 And the figure below shows how the probability for each country to become world champions have evolved over the tournament

where we notice that Netherlands have climbed from below 5% to above 13%. If we focus on the devlopment during the last match

we notice the obvious that Brazil's chances resemble of a Pyrenees stage in le Tour. Netherlands (purple) were of course virtually down to no chance, when Sneijder equalized in 88th (curious Dutch tradition to score in 88th a la Gullit). Greece were also down to microscopic chances when Papastathopoupos equalized and gave then some air, but already the ancient Greeks knew that one can not fight the odds forever and in the long run most things become normal.
 
With eight teams remaining we can also notice that we have the hosts Brazil, three countries from Spanish America, and four countries from Europe. Success for European teams seems to correlate with proximity to Luxembourg; just as an illustration of that one can find patterns in random dust.