Ryan O'Hanlon

Soccer...

like is way behind all the other sports in terms of like how objective analysis is being employed but the set pieces did catch on and it was enough of a story in the premier league and the team that won the league arsenal set the record for um corner kick goals in a season they played a very conservative style

it became enough of a story that I think it's like a very real thing that people are aware of.

But I think, you know, given that it happened in the Premier League, if it happens at the World Cup, I think it could become an even bigger story and then it could kind of be a thing that the soccer world will be unable to ignore and will have to

You should ask my editors.

No, I'm kidding.

I think I did it.

I've done it the past couple World Cups.

Part of me kind of wanted to do it as a little bit of a bit because now anyone can simulate the World Cup and be like, I simulated the World Cup using AI 100,000 times.

Here's what it said.

I think in soccer...

or the World Cup, we just underestimate how random it is and how often one of the teams that we thought was a favorite loses early on.

But if you go game by game and you predict everything, you kind of end up with all of the favorites advancing.

So I had to like...

get it in my head.

Like, I don't want this to try to have the maximum expected value for someone betting on the World Cup, but I wanted it to try to like match up to sort of what we normally see, the number of favorites that tend to lose in the World Cup.

When I did that, you know, I kind of saw,

It's interesting, Spain and Argentina, if they win their groups, it seems like they're not going to play any of the best teams until the semifinals.

So whether or not I think Spain and Argentina are the two most talented or the two most quote unquote informed teams, it seems like they might actually have like relatively easy paths to get far in the World Cup.

So it did reveal that bit of information to me.