Investment banks predict World Cup by "big Data"

Predicting the outcome of the World Cup has been a passion for investment banks and other institutions. July 9, 2010, in the German Oberhausen Aquarium, the success of the prediction of six World Cup results and the famous Octopus Paul to the South African World Cup final and second runner-up Battle "forecast."

"Brazil's national team in the 3721.html" >2014 World Cup will be smooth, in the 1/8 final with 3:1 out of Holland, followed by 3:1 victory Uruguay to the semi-finals, 2:1 after Germany to the South American team Argentina to meet the Argentine national side of Rio de Janeiro, Finally won the World Cup with 3:1 victory over Lionel Messi's team. ”......

In a 60-page report recently, Goldman Sachs, the US's leading investment bank, predicted the World Cup. At the opening of the World Cup in Brazil, this passage is likely to stir cheers or rants from countless fans.

and left the stock Exchange office and capital operation "black box", the investment bank in the pitch said the words "reliable"?

Predicting the outcome and the "best lineup"

Investment banks are predicting that the World Cup is nothing new, as analysts have said in the early 50, before the kick-off of almost every key event. It is true that the names of these investment banks have never been the most lively discussion of the pros and cons of each World Cup.

Before the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, all the big investment banks focused on elite analysts predicting the outcome of the World Cup. Goldman Sachs and Denmark's Stanley bank both assumed that the Brazilian national team would eventually win the World Cup, but the end result was disappointing for two investment banks. UBS, a famous investment bank, believed in the Spanish national team before the game, predicting success.

Of course, just predicting who wins the championship does not show investment banks ' vast data-analysis capabilities, and each goal is "not just a win but a winning process".

Before each World Cup, Goldman's forecasts always include the winning side, the negative, and the eventual "how far" the team will play in each round. In fact, at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Goldman Sachs predicted two teams in the top four, at least in the area of the four-strong forecast to make some face. However, before the 2002 World Cup, Goldman was bullish on the four-strong team did not have a "fulfilled", became a "crow mouth."

Perhaps to avoid undue embarrassment, investment banking analysts often predict the percentage of trophies or teams getting a score. For example, in this year's World Cup forecast, Goldman Sachs decided that Brazil's title opportunity is 48.5%, the second is Argentina, the opportunity to win only 14.1%, the third is Germany, the opportunity to win is 11.4%. In fourth, the defending champion, Spain, has less than 10% chance of winning.

Of course, it seems easier to predict who can't win. Goldman Sachs listed Japan, Ghana, Costa Rica, Honduras, Cameroon, and Algeria as the six national teams in all the World Cup finals. Of course, there are a large number of teams, including Portugal, France and so on, not more than 1%. These projections look more "reliable" than the title list.

Just predicting the outcome of the team is not enough, and investment banks are hoping to predict the ultimate best squad for the World Cup's nearly thousand players. Compared to the title or the team's trend, the best lineup of the forecast variable, not only depends on the player's ability to state, at least to analyze the possibility of the player accidentally diarrhea.

On the eve of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, Goldman Sachs gave the list of best lineup for that World Cup. of the "433" lineup, the three strikers are the most popular three players in Europe: Lionel Messi, Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney. As a result, the "Best forward line" scored one goal, and Ronaldo contributed to the Portuguese national team's 7:2 sweep across the North Korean national team. This best lineup has become the media, peer ridicule Goldman Sachs "best material."

Goldman Sachs, however, seems to be more obsessive about its own choices. Messi and Ronaldo were the arrow figures in the best lineup for the 2014 World Cup forecast, only to replace Wayne Rooney with Brazilian player Nehwal. It is said that the reason Goldman chose Wayne Rooney was the former chief analyst Jim, a loyal fan of the United Kingdom's Manchester United Football Club, and now the new analyst is bullish on the performance of the host player Nehwal in recent years.

Team performance and salary is "big data"

How do investment banks predict the World Cup? Was it the result of the analysts ' discussions at the Smoky club, or the sending of spies to the national football team's training base for "spying on the military"?

In fact, people familiar with the development of social science in recent decades are aware that these predictions are nothing more than through data integration statistical analysis, may also be introduced into the home investment line of the mathematical formula "secret". To be fashionable, this is the "big data" that has been fired in the last two years.

To put it bluntly, "Big data" is a huge amount of data, with the development of the Internet, analysts do not have to be in the environment of paper to compare the ability to explore data, using a variety of methods to analyze data has become a research topic. And in the field of the contingency of football, people also began to try to use data to open "God Mode", the best play of course is the investment bank.

In the field of statistics, data analysis is based on the search for variables. Whether a data has an impact on the final analysis depends on how the data relates to the facts and how it relates. Different analysts may disagree on the "conclusive data" of a particular variable and have different predictions for the outcome.

UBS was bullish on the Spanish national team on the eve of the 2010 World Cup because analysts at UBS decided that the biggest link to the World Cup was the performance of the entire team in a specific time period before the World Cup. At the time, Spain was a winner in the qualifiers, and in other competitions, it stood out from the "conclusive data".

However, in UBS's analysis, there is also a "decisive data" is the team's salary structure, that is, the team with the most comprehensive value of the players may be more easily won the World Cup. By this standard England should have behaved well. But it turned out that the team, who ranked second in 470 million euros (1 euros and 8.39 yuan), continued to play the role of "tragic hero" in the World Cup.

Brazil is the hottest team in the championship.

By the year 2014, UBS's understanding of the data seems to have changed. The investment bank is starting to look on the Brazilian team because the performance of the hosts over the years looks critical. If this data were to be "conclusive data", Brazil would naturally be the hottest team to win.

Dansk Bank analyst and UBS's understanding is not the same. Social-economic variables, they say, are "conclusive figures" of good performance at the World Cup. According to the investment bank, richer, more populous countries have a richer talent pool. The World Cup performance must be the best. In addition to social-economic variables, the FIFA rankings are important in the eyes of the investment banking analyst, but they are determined that the more ranked teams will perform better in the World Cup.

Obviously, this data analysis standard does not explain why the U.S. national team never took the World Cup, the Indian national team has not been in the World Cup finals, not to mention the world's first ranked China national team.

In fact, all scholars who study the humanities and social sciences understand that the explanatory power of data analysis or "quantitative research" is limited, since no one can generalize all the factors that can have an impact on an event, and any single factor may have explanatory power, but this explanatory power will never be able to discern the full truth of the event. In other words, the investment banks have been happy with the predictions of the World Cup based on data integration "may or may not be right;

"Investment banking plus football equals all kinds of publicity."

Since the hand of the "crystal ball" can not be completely accurate, Ming know not likely to foresee the future, investment banks have to wear a hood, seriously to start "witness the miracle of the moment"?

According to the investment bank's own explanation, the World Cup is predicted because football is "very important" to the planet we live in.

Goldman Sachs, in its 60-page forecast, entitled "A combination of football and the economy", made a "logical statement" about the importance of football: "Logically, football is much more important than economics." A Liverpool coach once said that football is much more important than life and death. On the contrary, few economic events are more important than life and death. So the conclusion must be that, logically, football is much more important than economics. ”

This philosophical sophistry, full of Aristotle's syllogism, is indeed flattering, but I am afraid it is hard to convince even Goldman Sachs itself.

As a result, the famous investment bank added: "If you don't believe this logic, consider the fact that every Englishman knows that the" Three Lions "(England) won the World Cup in 1966, but how many people know what year the economy is? ...... If Britain wins the 2014 World Cup, the British will remember this year whether it is good or bad. Of course, we think it's unlikely that Britain will win the World Cup by 2,062 years. ”

The problem, however, is that investment banks are not a provider of public entertainment, but rather a pursuit of economic gains. Is it true that the tenets of investment banking analysts are "there is no eternal economic cycle, only eternal football"?

In fact, there is a phrase in the investment circle: "Investment banking plus football, is tantamount to various publicity." "At the end of the day, no one will remember how many times the investment banks have predicted the failure of the World Cup, and people will remember that one year the World Cup was successfully predicted by an investment bank;

For investment banks, in a world full of uncertainty, the hope is to use programmatic, standardized analytical methods to guess that even the butterfly moved a wing can produce changes in the way of life, itself is a small probability event. How do I hit a small probability event? Just try a lot.

In the industry, the focus of competition between different investment banks is how to package customer financing and achieve better development. How to get the best customers and earn the maximum Commission? It is necessary to prove to customers that the investment bank is able to discern inconstancy, the allocation of an abacus can know where to go next, even the most contingency of football can be predicted from time to time success.

Of course, "self-propaganda" is an explanation for investment banks predicting the World Cup. For many people who love football, this explanation is too serious, they are more inclined to believe the magic of football.