On the field, the 2022 FIFA World Cup is one of the most anticipated sporting competitions in some time. Off the field, this tournament has been an unmitigated disaster since Qatar bought the hosting rights in 2010. The predictive model for this tournament is based on the college football rating model, as well as machine learning to predict match outcomes, and thus, the group standings and knockout stage bracket. Almost 2,000 matches over the past two and a half years were used to compline comprehensive ratings of all 205 teams on the planet who played during this period. While the model cannot say that France has the most talented attack in the world, or who will win the golden boot, it is solely based on the three most important factors in tournament football: the wins, draws, and losses. For information about the corruption, human rights abuse, and political controversy behind this tournament, there are many excellent articles and documentaries from various sources more qualified than me to present the facts. FIFA, Fox, and other authorities presenting the tournament will attempt to push the events that led up to this World Cup to the background, so becoming educated on the context around this tournament is extremely important.
The game simulations showed in each game preview are from the model, and these are used to compute the expected points for each group. The graphs shown are probability distribution graphs, which are not exactly equivalent to probability, but provide a rough idea of the likelihood of outcomes. Mathematically, probability is the integral of the probability distribution function, so the probability of a score is an integral of the graph, which is used in the model. In some cases, the percentage chances of each outcome will not agree with the average score. This is the result of some teams being more consistent, but not high scoring. They might average more goals than another team, but the other team has a higher chance to put up a high score.
*BBR: Beam Brackets Rating out of 32 World Cup Teams *FIFA Rank: FIFA World Ranking out of all National Teams *Proj. Pts: Projected Points in the Group Stage according to the model
