World Cup Stats - Who has the toughest group

A bit of world cup stats for you. Answer me this who has the toughest group? Well luckily FIFA helpfully rank each team, based on previous performance. So if you add up the rankings for each group you get a comparative value. So Group A has Brazil ranked 11^th (Crazy as that might sound), Croatia 18^th,  Mexico 24^th and Cameroon 59^th. So collectively the ranking for the group totals 112. In theory at least the toughest group should be the one with the lowest collective ranking.

So here goes in order from easiest to hardest.

• v  D (Uruguay, Italy, England, Costa Rica) – 56
• v  G (Germany, US, Portugal, Nigeria) – 57
• v  B  (Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia) -78
• v  C (Colombia, Greece, Cote d’Ivoire, Japan) -80
• v  E (Switzerland, Ecuador, France, Honduras) - 84
• v  F (Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Nigeria) - 101
• v  H (Belgium, Algeria, Russia, Korea Republic) -107
• v  A (Brazil, Croatia, Mexico, Cameroon) - 112

So clearly Brazil have it easy as do Belgium, But unfortunately, Its official England are in the group of death. But only just by a hairs breath, Germany only have it one place easier, and with the US, Portugal and Nigeria in their group I think I’d prefer Englands.

One Subtle thing that you could toy with is the idea that the logic that in every group the 4^th team is very unlikely to get very far. Yet they account for the majority of the score, and there is considerable variance (23 >59). What if you treated them as outliers and ignored them. What if in effect you assumed that the 4^th ranked team was going to lose every match.

• v  B  (Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia) - 21
• v  D (Uruguay, Italy, England, Costa Rica) – 25
• v  G (Germany, US, Portugal, Nigeria) – 34
• v  C (Colombia, Greece, Cote d’Ivoire, Japan) -36
• v  E (Switzerland, Ecuador, France, Honduras) - 50
• v  H (Belgium, Algeria, Russia, Korea Republic) - 51
• v  F (Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Nigeria) - 52
• v  A (Brazil, Croatia, Mexico, Cameroon) - 53

Well the answer is not much changes, the toughest group becomes group B, with Spain and Netherlands in it hard to see Chile overcoming them. Group H also looks slightly worse off too but still Brazil have bar far the easiest group, even accounting for their own poor seeding they retain the easiest group.

None of this helps to work out who is going to win, that will be Brazil anyway, but the stats in sport are what I enjoy so a little distraction never hurt anyone.