Scorecasting analysis suggests that the likeliest match winners in the round of 16 are Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, England, France, Morocco and Spain. The altitude in Mexico City will be something of a leveller, but it seems unlikely to leave England’s game against Mexico as a toss-up.
A further 16 matches over six days has whittled down the World Cup field from 32 teams to 16. Germany’s penalty shoot-out defeat to Paraguay was the main shock of the first knockout round, as the Germans had about a 63% chance of progressing. Had Senegal held on against Belgium, that would have been about as big a shock as the Paraguayans’ victory.
Morocco’s win over the Netherlands might have been considered a shock, but our Elo prediction only had the Netherlands at about 55% – a match very much in the balance and one of the more even ties of the round.
Some of the less even match-ups, a priori, provided perhaps the most excitement of the round, with Cape Verde pushing holders Argentina to extra time despite having had just a 10% chance of progressing – and Congo leading against England with 15 minutes remaining despite having had just a 17% chance of progressing.
All Asian teams have been knocked out, and all bar two African teams, leaving a very familiar feel to the last 16 – dominated by Europe and South America. Canada, Egypt, Mexico, Morocco and the United States are the remaining teams from outside the traditional heartlands of World Cup success. These five nations are also the least likely to win the competition – between them, their chances amount to about 3.5%.
At the other end of the spectrum, Argentina survived after extra time against Cape Verde, but their probability of winning the World Cup has dropped slightly to 28%, in part reflecting that France have benefitted from Germany’s surprise elimination at the hands of Paraguay.
France have jumped to a 14% chance of lifting the trophy, and Spain to 16%, reflecting that each are one game closer to the ultimate prize. Spain made light work of Austria; France similarly with Sweden.
How will England cope in Mexico City?
England move up to 12%, reflective as much as anything of the reduction in the number of teams remaining in the competition. Brazil and Argentina remain in England’s way should they navigate their last 16 match against Mexico in Mexico City.
Even factoring in home advantage, Mexico have expected goals of 0.6 against England, to England’s 1.6, a clear goal advantage. This yields a probability of England winning outright at 62%, with Mexico at 13% and the draw leading to penalties at 25%.
A particular talking point about England’s match in Mexico City against hosts Mexico is that of altitude. While speculation is rife regarding the impact of playing at altitude, we have thousands of past matches played at varying altitudes in order to determine what the actual impact is on any home advantage. If we round to the nearest 500 metres, there is almost no impact of playing at increasing altitude on the likelihood that the home team wins.
Figure 1. Home teams win more often at altitude
Source: Author's calculations
The home team wins about 55% of international matches at sea level, reflecting that a third of all matches are played at within 250 metres of sea level (above or below). About 6% of matches, or close to 4000, have been played historically between 250 and 750 metres above sea level, and just 265 between 2000 and 2250, where Mexico City lies. But 52% of those matches have seen the home team win – a lower level of home advantage than at sea level.
But it is important to control for team strength. A key component of our model is our Economic Observatory Elo ratings, which both correlate highly with FIFA’s own ranking system, and predict international matches well. These give a measure of how much a home win is expected, as they are 1 if the home win is certain, and 0 if an away win is certain.
We categorise our home win outcome variable as 1, zero otherwise, and hence subtracting the Elo prediction from the outcome variable and taking the mean yields a measure of how likely a home win was. The kinds of teams playing at high altitude are generally not those with the highest Elo ratings: Bolivia above 3000 metres; and Ecuador, Ethiopia and Mexico above 2000 metres.
Figure 2. High-altitude teams outperform Elo expectations
Source: Author's calculations
When doing this, we find that below 1750 metres, home wins happen about as much as would be expected. A positive number means that the home team wins more often than would be expected, and hence above about 1750 metres, the home team is winning more than would be expected – indicative of altitude providing some kind of competitive advantage. But even at the highest altitude, the over-performance gap, at 20 percentage points, is still within the margin of error.
None of this indicates that Mexico will have a particularly huge competitive advantage when facing England in Mexico City, but equally, it doesn’t rule out Mexico benefitting as England have little time to acclimatise to the higher altitude levels.
If the altitude reduces England’s expected goals by 0.25, and increases Mexico’s by 0.25 (say), that would reduce England’s probability of winning to 48% and increase Mexico’s to 24%. England are the better team both by our method based on past results, and also on other methods such as ranking teams based on Transfermarkt transfer values. The altitude will be something of a leveller, but it seems unlikely that that is sufficient to leave the match as a toss-up.
What about the remaining last 16 ties?
Based on team strengths and the outcomes of our simulations, we would expect to see Argentina progressing over Egypt (77% likely), England over Mexico (74%), Morocco over Canada (70%), Spain over Portugal (72%), Colombia over Switzerland (70%), Brazil over Norway (69%), Belgium over the United States (64%) and France over Paraguay (62%).
Perhaps France’s low likelihood of progression against Paraguay stands out here. As we noted in our preview of Group D, the South Americans are resolute defensively, and aside from their opening match against the United States, have undoubtedly shown that resilience. Free-scoring France only have expected goals of 1.1 in that match, with Paraguay at 0.6. It suggests that it will actually be France’s toughest test yet – contrary to expectations.
