World Cup Resource - Continental Patterns

In my various World Cup readings, lots of people for whom I have a great deal of respect, are talking up the African sides ahead of this year's show piece. I wanted to know whether anything in the data suggested this is an emerging trend, or not, so trawled back over the past 25 years to see for myself.

Here are the rules of the data.

- All data is from 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014

- I've clumped Asia/Oceania together, since depending on qualification, the Oceanic winner has joined in a variety of ways.

- I broke all matches into Group Stage and Knock Out Stage

- All FIFA Rankings are taken at time of the World Cup start.

I wanted to assess, for each confederation, how they perform in the groups on average, how their average FIFA ranking may have changed over the years, what the average group finishing positions has been and how many points they win on average in games.

I also wanted to see how often they reached the knock out stages, and whether they ever performed well at this level. So let's get stuck in.

Africa

Generally entering World Cups with 5 or 6 representatives , its notable that no African side has won their group since 1998. In fact, since then, only five sides have qualifed for the knock outs from 21 attempts - a success rate of just 23% - around about 10/3 shot.

That's not far away from what we see in the betting markets, with the sides all priced between 13/8 and 5/1 to escape from their groups. African sides have collected on average between 0.8pts and 1pt per game in each of the last six tournaments, and that's surely not enough to see a load of them progress. 12 from 29 have finished bottom of their groups, and thats been a pretty steady pattern as well over the years. There could well be some value to be had in a few of those odds - on average that's a 40% chance - or a 6/4 shot in our money, yet you can get bigger than that about four of the five sides.

Key Stat: 41% of African sides have finished bottom of their groups over the past 24 years. With steady average points per match, we dont see that changing too much.

Asia/Oceana

Caution is needed here with slightly smaller sample sizes.

Fifa world rankings have been on the slide, significantly. I don't tend to pay too much attention there given how calendars and tours change, so we'll skip over it, but note it.

Five sides in this pot this year - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Australia, Korea and Japan.

There seems to be a lot more noise here, and whilst the bad news is that in 2014 all four sides finished bottom of their groups, the better news is that over the six tournaments, they've collected 0.84pts per game - the same as African teams broadly.

Like the Africans, we haven't see a knock out win in 90 minutes in 25 years now, so they shouldnt hold out too much hope of dominating.

Most sides are quoted at odds-on prices to finish bottom of their groups, so not much is being given away here. The exception could be Japan, who are 7/5. Over the past 24 years, 13 of the 24 sides have finished bottom, and only 2 have won their groups. Six have qualified though (an implied average 3/1 shot), so there could be some value to be had on sides getting through in weaker groups where the odds are still big.

Key Stat: Look for sides to qualify (or finish exactly 2nd) in groups where there is a more level feel to the group.

Central/Northern America

Qualifying from this section is always simpler than most, but teams have enjoyed some World Cup success.

Evidence by the fact that four of the 19 have won their groups, and 10 have qualified, giving them a better than 50% strike rate at progressing. Thats been even stronger over the past two events, with three out of four going forward in 2014, and two from three in 2010. Costa Rica could make plenty of appeal at 9/2 to get through their interesting group for a start off.

Again we are seeing sides Fifa Ranking gradually slip, but it doesn't look significant and the numbers are slight in any case. Central American sides have average 1.2pts per game in the group stages since 1994.

South America

Moving towards the big boys here, we've had 29 sides participate over the past six World Cups.

13 have won their groups 44% (average 5/4 shot), and 20 have qualified (69%) - in other words about a 4/9 chance.

The trends do seem to be getting better (of course we did have a Brazilian World Cup in 2014 - but they also performed well in 2006 and 2010).

Over the past three World Cups 13 (9 as Group Winners) of the 15 participants have qualified, which may go some way to explaining why the market respects Colombia so much in Group H. For me the big interest looks to be in Peru, who not only come from a consistently performing region, and are ranked 11th by Fifa, and 10th in the Elo ratings. Australia look the whipping boys in Group C, and it would only take a good result against Denmark or France to progress in all likelihood. 9/4 looks an interesting bet there.

Thinking back to how the Africans and Asians tend to do, Group A could also be interesting, with Uruguay boasting two World Class strikers, and they must have a great chance of topping Group A.

Europe

The biggest of all - Europe get 13 spots - so some success is a given of course. Some big names missed out this year - Holland and Italy biggest of the lot.

The first thing we'll want to see is whether the 46% qualification trend of the last two renewals is a sign of European football losing some of its historical edge. Before that it was nearer 65% most renewals. The average group points in 2014 was 1.56, and in 2010 was 1.41, and that's not significantly below their averages, so its quite possible its nothing by a blip.

Over the past six World Cups, 25 European sides have topped a group, 49 have qualified and 34 have missed out on progressing. So 30% have won, 59% have qualified and 41% have failed to qualify.

Poland look interesting in Group H - they are 15/8 to win a group, and have only one South American and no other European's in their part, while in Group G you have to feel its a straight shoot between Belgium and England, and there should only be one winner there surely? Belgium are 5/6 to top their Group.

12 of the 83 have finished bottom of their groups - a 14% shot, which means around a 7/1 shot to finish bottom for the average European side, in the average Group.

I think Iceland are too short in this regard at 6/5 to finish bottom in Group D - they should be competitive in their and look to be getting underrated.

Summary

I hope you've enjoyed this read, and given some thought to the trends and how they might you pull some winners. If you've liked this one, we'd love you to share it out on Twitter and help some more like minded folk.

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