Monday, June 16, 2014

Ghana vs. USA THIS LAND IS MY LAND

edit - OMG



edit :( :(

USA USA USA!








It's a long post so I'll start with a summary:

  • Go USA!
  • It should be a very close game with Ghana
  • USA Fans should be root for Germany this morning
  • 1 point and 3 point are most likely for the USA squad, but it's pretty up in the air!


This being the first World Cup game for the Boys in Red, White, and Blue, I did a few extra maths. First, the Predicted Outcomes chart we're all becoming familiar with. 1-1 Draw is the most likely, but it's basically a horse race (just like this game!) between 1-1, 1-0, 0-1, and 0-0. Here's to the USA ending up on the good side of this coin flip.


If the US team can get the win tomorrow they'll really help out their chance to emerge from the group state. In fact, a win tomorrow would roughly double their chances! I was (of course) curious to see how much a win tomorrow would help out the USA, so I ran those numbers, but I was also curious about Germany, hence the chart below.

Each of the 9 boxes in this 3x3 grid represents a potential outcome for tomorrow's two Group G games. You read this by finding the intersection between the two outcomes you're interested in. So if the USA game ends in  draw (3rd column) and Germany wins (1st row) then the USA would have a 22% chance of advancing from the group stage. Yeah?

The takeaway here is that United States fans clearly need to be rooting for Germany in the 9am match. If the US Teams wins or draws their match, they'll be measurably better off for Germany having won. It makes sense (to me) - Germany is Boss and the favorite to win the group. USA is competing with Portugal and Ghana for second. Bad for Portugal is good for USA.

Lastly, (for a reason, sigh) I wondered how the overall chances were looking for the USA in their group of death. So I modeled how likely are they to end at each potential point total. Sign, 1 is the mostly likely outcome followed closely by 3.

I am saying there's a chance they get 9 points though! A chance!

No comments:

Post a Comment