Every four years, millions of soccer (or fútball) fans crowd around their TV to watch the FIFA World Cup, one of the most prestigious, awaited sporting events in the world.
The most consistently dangerous teams, Brazil and Argentina, often hold the odds, but in recent years, less prominent teams have taken the Cup. In 2018, against all odds, the Croatian and French teams went to the finals and eventually France won.
This year tells another story. Brazil and Argentina are behemoths. Though Argentina had a heart-wrenching loss against Saudi Arabia, the team, starring superstar Lionel Messi, still looks in good shape to go all the way. Messi, widely regarded as one of the best soccer players ever, is yet to win a World Cup, and this year’s is his last chance to do so.
As for Brazil, its star player Neymar Jr. suffered an injury and is reported to be out until at least the end of the group stage. At this point in the tournament however, Neymar has since recovered and Brazil has shown their last opponent (South Korea) their true might. It is clear that Brazil and Argentina are the clear frontrunners to win the cup this year. Messi is going to end his World Cup career on a good note, and this is the ending he and his teammates are fighting for.
According to Fivethirtyeight.com, Argentina is statistically disadvantaged when accounting for roster strength, club wins and qualification performance. The statistical point index that Fivethirtyeight uses, Soccer Power Index, has Argentina as the 5th most mathematically probable team to win. Though Brazil looks strong on paper, Argentina is going to play the rest of this tournament with and will that the World Cup has never seen.
Electronic Arts, a gaming company that makes hyper realistic sports games, predicts Argentina will be victorious. Their World Cup predictions came true in 2014 and 2018, making the system undeniably authentic. The realism is far past what would be expected by a video game. Players play in the same manner as they would in real life and every aspect of the game is created to accurately replicate real life scenarios.
One day, other teams will develop and compete at the same level as the currently dominant teams and maybe Argentina will fall in the future. The dynastic rule of the top few teams will hopefully be a theme of today’s FIFA and not tomorrow’s.
