Economists Predict England Will Win Qatar 2022 World Cup But AI Backs Brazil

Everybody from pundits to Paul the Octopus is making predictions about who will win the Qatar 2022 World Cup, but rather than go on a hunch, some predictions are based on mountains of data.

Lloyd’s of London, the world’s leading marketplace for corporate risk solutions, has based its predictions on the insurable value of each player. It says the tournament’s players’ total insurable value is around $26 billion, an increase of $10.6 billion since 2018. Its research, supported by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, uses wages, sponsorship, age and position on the pitch to calculate players’ insurable value.

Based on this method, Lloyd’s correctly picked the winners in 2014 and 2018.

This year, it is backing England to win the World Cup.

Lloyd’s valued England at $3.74 billion, making them the most valuable team at Qatar 2022. France were second most valuable at $3.14 billion and Brazil at $3.02 billion. It rates England’s Jude Bellingham as the most insurable player, followed by France’s Kylian Mbappe.

Lloyd’s predicts England will top their group before beating Senegal, France and Spain in the knockout stages. England will then win against Brazil in the World Cup final.

On the other hand, leading sports data producer OPTA, has used artificial intelligence to predict the winner of the World Cup.

Its AI has created odds for each team, which change live during games throughout the tournament as every goal scored will change the possible route other teams could take to the final.

Ahead of the tournament, the team it has given the best chance of winning the World Cup is Brazil.

OPTA has given Brazil a 16.3% chance of winning the World Cup.

Neymar, Vinicius Junior and their teammates have an 88.5% chance of reaching the knockout stages, and a 25.7% chance of reaching the final.

Argentina have the second best chance at 13.1%, followed by France at 12%, Spain at 8.9% and England at 8.8%.

OPTA predicts that England will top Group B, with the USA most likely to finish second, just edging out Wales. The USA are given a 0.7% chance of winning the whole thing.

Former Cameroon and Barcelona striker Samuel Eto’o has predicted an all-African final with Cameroon lifting the trophy. Ahead of the tournament though, OPTA has only given Cameroon a 19.8% chance of reaching the knockout stages and a 0.2% chance of winning the tournament. That’s slightly lower than hosts Qatar, who have been given a 0.3% chance of winning the World Cup.

With no team at this stage given more than a one-in-six chance of winning the World Cup, OPTA’s data show how hard it is to correctly pick who will lift the trophy on December 18.