[derdi]

> Applied prospectively to the in-progress 2026 World Cup from the Round of 32, the model identifies Argentina (28.0%) and Spain (21.1%) as the leading championship candidates.

Seems weird to wait to run the "prospective" simulation until the World Cup is already in progress. Although it seems that the model also needs to use "the actual bracket and group-stage performance". So it's not prospective?

[swiftcoder]

It predicts likely winners based on the round of 32 performance (plus prior data). That's still "prospective" with respect to the finals

[derdi]

Yes. I don't like phrasing this as being prospective for the World Cup as a whole. It's for the knockout stage. (Which the abstract says! But the title doesn't.)

[glimshe]

Which is very reasonable. You estimate odds after seeing teams playing with the actual squad selection at that period in time. Otherwise I'd dismiss the predictions as lucky guesses in a row.

[kunxue]

The baseline matters here: favorites win World Cups all the time. How often would "always pick the two pre-tournament favorites" have gotten the champion in these same 10 tournaments? Without that comparison, 10/10 tells us basically nothing.

[decimalenough]

France was far and away the pre-tournament favorite for 2026, if anything it's somewhat impressive that OP's model correctly predicted that they wouldn't make it.

Here's hoping they were right for England as well, but we'll find out soon enough.

[fabioricardo7]

That was exactly the point I was trying to make in this preprint. I appreciate your comment.