Cyber ​​fortune-telling: Who is most likely to win the Club World Cup?

Sports Weekly All Media Original

This Sunday, the new version of the Club World Cup will kick off in the United States. As usual, various warm-up activities have already started, and using supercomputers to speculate that champions are a relatively common one. What is quite interesting is that, just like the opinions of experts and celebrities, the same is true for simulation and deduction by supercomputers. Different models and algorithms are used, and the results obtained can be very different.

First, let’s take a look at Opta, which everyone is familiar with. In terms of data statistics, this company can be considered quite authoritative, with detailed and comprehensive information. Relying on these data, Opta has been doing supercomputing performances for important events recently, such as the Premier League and the Champions League. This new Club World Cup is no exception. According to their simulation results this week, the new Champions League champion Paris Saint-Germain is the number one favorite to win the Club World Cup, with the probability of winning the championship reaching 18.5%.

What is slightly surprising is that the second-place chance of winning is not Real Madrid, the most popular in odds, but Manchester City, which has performed poorly in the Premier League and the Champions League in the past season. The probability that Blue Moon was calculated is 17.8%, which is only a little lower than Paris Saint-Germain. Is this because the supercomputer believes that new players such as Nuri can make Guardiola's team come back sharply? After Paris and Manchester City, there is no team with a probability of winning the championship of more than 15%. Bayern ranked third with 12.8%; lost 5 goals in the Champions League final, while Inter Milan, which had just changed coaches, had 12.3%.

Real Madrid, which has many superstars such as Mbappe, Vinicius and Bellingham, ranks fifth with a probability of 9.8%. It seems that the supercomputer also believes that their lineup is not balanced or does not have "stamina" enough. The 6th place is the European Cup champion Chelsea, with a probability of 8.4%. Later, they are Dortmund (5.4%), Atletico Madrid (5.1%), Juventus (3.6%) and Benfica (3.3%) in turn. This order can be said to be a bit "stable and stable". It seems that the probability of a well-known team is greater, while the weaker ones can only be left behind.

Intriguingly, although only 10 teams were calculated to have a probability of winning the Club World Cup championship with more than 1%, the remaining teams may not be 0. For example, although the probability of qualifying in the group by Messi is less than half (47%), they did have a final victory in the 10,000 deductions of the supercomputer - a 0.2% chance, and that should be 20 times. Will such a super-low probability event occur in reality? It's hard to imagine, but for fans, having some fantasies is not a bad thing.

As mentioned earlier, the results of events that run with different models may be different, and may be very different. Regarding the Club World Cup, a bookmaker called "boylesports" has achieved a bit of eye-catching result. In the same way, 10,000 simulations were conducted, the company screened out a complete set of results: Paris, Real Madrid, and Manchester City were all the popular winners, and the trophy was won by a European "second-rate giant" and the winner was Benfica. In the company's supercomputer simulation, Paris Saint-Germain was eliminated by Brazil's Palmeiras in the round of 16, Real Madrid also lost to Manchester City at the same stage, while Benfica defeated Bayern and Blue Moon two-to-1 in the semi-finals and finals respectively.

This seems a bit outrageous, but it can also be explained. After all, the Club World Cup is not the league or the Champions League, and it is still unknown how much effort the major clubs will really put in. After a long season, it is not certain how much power they still have. In addition, supercomputer deduction is just a kind of "entertainment". Don't take it too seriously. It's true that human (computer) calculations are not as good as heaven's calculations. Everyone should have a clear idea of ​​how many times Opta's supercomputer simulations have been missed in the past year.