A Bayesian approach for predicting match outcomes: The 2006 (Association) Football World Cup

Abstract

In this paper we propose a Bayesian methodology for predicting match outcomes. The methodology is illustrated on the 2006 Soccer World Cup. As prior information, we make use of the specialists’ opinions and the FIFA ratings. The method is applied to calculate the win, draw and loss probabilities at each match and also to simulate the whole competition in order to estimate classification probabilities in group stage and winning tournament chances for each team. The prediction capability of the proposed methodology is determined by the DeFinetti measure and by the percentage of correct forecasts.

Keywords:

• Bayesian inference
• forecasting
• simulation
• Soccer World Cup
• sports
• statistics

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the referees who pointed out many interesting issues which have enabled a substantial improvement of this paper. This work has received financial support from CNPq and CAPES.