Move over, Nate Silver; Stephen Hawking is now dabbling in data-driven sporting analysis:
“[England’s] chances of triumph [in the World Cup] can be worked out by looking at a number of environmental, physiological, psychological, political and tactical variables,” he wrote. According to his apparently very scientific calculations, the team should wear red, and play in a 4-3-3 formation for a psychological boost.
His data crunching of results from finals since the 1966 Cup (all too long again when England won) also revealed that England wins 63 percent of games when the referee is European and only 38 percent when they’re from elsewhere, and that the team is twice as successful at altitudes below 500m over sea level, and a third more likely to do well when kick-off is around 3pm.
Regardless, Goldman Sachs expects a Brazilian victory:
According to the report authors, the results are surprising in how strongly they favor a win by Brazil. … They write that “it is hardly surprising that the most successful team in football history is favored to win a World Cup at home. But the extent of the Brazilian advantage in our model is nevertheless striking.”
The Dish 