The Euro 2024 football tournament starts tomorrow in Germany with the hosts playing against Scotland and I cant wait.
For the last few football tournaments I have run a match prediction league for friends, colleagues and other associates
I wasnt going to do it this time….It is a lot of work, but its so much fun I could not resist
Besides, it gives me an excuse to watch every match
Background
Over the past few tournaments I developed a model to predict the outcomes of matches, using a wide range of indicators. These included FIFA rankings, ELO ratings, Squad values, bookmakers odds and even predictions from football pundits. Then I asked colleagues and friends to get involved and bring their predictions in too
With all of these indicators often giving conflicting opinions and results we needed to ‘learn’ which indicators gave the most reliable results. So we sampled historic data to start the model with a basic understanding
Then as the tournaments progressed and results were recorded the accuracy of these results were reflected in the reliability scores of each indicator.
This time around
We now have a stronger basis for each indicator after running it across the last few tournaments
So its time to dig out the old model, update it with the latest sets of data from the past couple of years for each team
Previously I ran a whole prediction league table and shared performances publicly after each game, but it was a huge commitment. So this time to simplify things I have entered into a commercial package which manages that side of things for us. Allowing us more time to focus on the predictions and the model itself
We have set up a private league using the Scorito app and invited close friends and family to join in the fun, its a great talking point
Predictions for the group stages
Group A
We see the hosts Germany coming out top of their group with three wins out of three, closely followed by Switzerland
With both Hungary and Scotland not progressing
Group B
Spain look to top their group with three wins, with Italy the current champions progressing via goal difference ahead of Croatia
Group C
Engalnd as the tournament favourites should also top their group with three wins, with Denmark taking the second spot on six points
Group D
France another strong team should top their group with a three wins, followed by the Netherlands
Group E
Belgium should finish top in their group, with Ukraine taking the second spot
Group F
Portugal are predicted to win their group too with three wins, Turkey to take the second spot
So at the end of the group stages, we will have seen the results of 24 matches, with 16 teams going through to the next stage, the round of 16
8 teams going home
How many will we get right, we will update at the end of the group stages, we are targeting to get 70% of the correct outcomes which is pretty good
of the 16 teams we predict to go through to the round of 16, we should get 11 correct. But the predictions all seem sensible before the tournament starts. It all get interesting when we see the unexpected results. Football is unpredictable and that is what makes it so interesting
Join In
If you want to join in with our friendly competition and give us your EURO 2024 predictions, then let me know and I can share a link with you. No prizes just a bit of fun and to get involved in matches you might not ordinarily care about
simon.harrison@selectdistinct.co.uk
The deadline for entries is 8pm on the 14th June
We will post more content about the results of our predictions as well as predictions ahead of each stage
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