The 2018 World Cup is finally here. In the opening match, Saudi Arabia will take the pitch against the host country Russia, who is favored by the majority of analysts. In our opening post we explored the predictive qualities of…

Authored by: Steve Sandmeyer

At last…the round of 16 is upon us. No more draws, no more goal differentials, no more tie-breakers (other than extra time and penalty kicks). The knockout round. Win or go home. Fight or Flight. (Feel free to insert your own cliche…

Authored By: Steve Sandmeyer

The knockout round brings tons of drama with it as we continue our analysis of World Cup using Google Cloud by previewing the host country Russia taking on World Cup power Spain.

Semi-final mania has gripped fan bases around the globe as we continue our analysis of World Cup using Google Cloud. Today we preview England vs Croatia — both of whom are on the verge of entering rarified air. Croatia has never advanced to a final. England won the one and only…

Quarterfinal play is upon as as we continue our tournament long analysis of World Cup using Google Cloud. This post features the Brazil v. Belgium match — pitting one team (Brazil) who has conceded just one goal against another team (Belgium) with a World Cup leading 12 goals.

Welcome to the inaugural post for “Analyzing the World Cup using Google Cloud” — a publication which carries forward work from the previous World Cup in 2014 (blog, predictions, and Strata session). Our lineup for this 21st FIFA World Cup is a bit different: some new…

The semi-finals are upon us as we continue our analysis of World Cup using Google Cloud with a preview of France and Belgium. The two nations share part of a border with each other (620 kilometers to be precise) and one can only imagine what kind of fever pitch this match has created in that…

Welcome back to our analysis of the World Cup using Google Cloud. We wrote earlier about the data coverage we have for our analysis of the beautiful game and a bit about our expected goals models. In this post we will talk a bit about how we’re using all of that to predict game…

Knockout round analysis of World Cup using Google Cloud continues as our featured match of Brazil vs. Mexico involves a pair of squads each of whom have endured their share of turbulence. Neither Brazil nor Mexico enjoyed an easy path out of group play. Mexico battled inconsistency. Brazil, at…

Momentum vs Pressure

Welcome to the deep heat of group play as we continue our analysis of the 2018 World Cup using Google Cloud. In this post…