[Grue3]

I can say right off the bat this is completely wrong. The sum of probabilities of each team winning cannot be 100%. Why? Because draws exist. Worse yet, the concept of "playing for a draw" based on your current position in the group also exists. Also, the concept of "nothing to play for", when the team is already guaranteed the first place in the group and might not play at full strength in the final game.

[lum]

Yes, for now we only predict win / lose. It is fairly reasonable to assume that draws are more likely to arise if the winning probabilities are close to 50/50 (and less likely if there is a big difference) - but you are also right that there are some contextual factors that influence this.

You know the saying, "all models are wrong, but some are useful" - our model is clearly too simple to encode many of these complex patterns, but we believe that's alright!

[r3bl]

Yes, the draws exist, but every other argument you've posted cannot be applied to the first round of group games. Chances are huge that all of the times are going to want to start strong.

As the researchers said multiple times, they're going to be updating their algorithms all of the time and take into account the things they've missed in the current version.

[tremon]

Chances are huge that all of the times are going to want to start strong.

Except when you're the lowest-ranked team, and starting your group with a match against the favourite. In that case, you're likely to play for damage control (e.g. aim for a draw, don't concede too many goals).