Well Rested vs Well Tested

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Analyzing the World Cup using Google Cloud

4 min readJul 11, 2018

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 final they’ve been to, taking the trophy on their home soil back in 1966.

Croatia finds itself in the semi-finals for the first time since 1998 while England is making its first appearance since 1990. This match marks the eighth time the two nations have met — but the first time doing so in anything resembling a major tournament since 2004 Euro group play — when England won 4–2 while Wayne Rooney was still a teenager.

There is no debating that England will have fresher legs than Croatia. The Three Lions advanced by virtue of a rather routine 2–0 victory over Sweden. Meanwhile, Vatreni (The Blazers) went to penalty kicks each of their last two matches — surviving shootouts against Denmark and host country Russia — becoming just the second nation ever to win two shootouts in the same World Cup (Argentina 1990). Make no mistake, while adrenaline kicks in at this stage in World Cup play, the fatigue factor is definitely something to monitor closely. Furthermore, England has enjoyed a much easier tournament path in terms of competition, with many pundits claiming this matchup against Croatia will be their first true test.

While Golden Boot Award leader Harry Kane has enjoyed some good fortune in addition to utilizing his incredible skill set — the fact remains England has scored 11 goals thus far — and is thriving off set pieces. Eight of England’s 11 goals at the 2018 World Cup have been scored via set pieces — since 1966, the only team to equal that number in a single World Cup tournament are Portugal in 1966 (also eight goals).

Croatia has been magnificent at spreading the wealth — with 8 different players scoring their 10 World Cup goals. They may not have a hyped star like Harry Kane, but they do have arguably the best midfielder in the world in Luka Modric. Simply put, he has been a part of nearly every opportunity for Croatia; he has scored or assisted three goals (leading Croatia, T-9th most in the tournament), he has shot or assisted 2.66 xG (leading Croatia, 12th in the tournament). He is also leading the team in touches (420, 2nd most in the tournament), completed passes (302, 8th in the tournament, 5th if you take out Spain and their 1,115 passes against Russia). He is also leading the team in minutes played (485), distance covered (50.8 km) and midfield recoveries (28), no disrespect to the other players Croatia have in the middle of the park, but Modric is the engine that makes this team run.

Predictions

For England, we are assuming full strength in the squad and their most frequently used 3–1–4–2 formation of Jordan Pickford, Kyle Walker, John Stones, Harry Maguire, Kieran Trippier, Dele Alli, Jordan Henderson, Jesse Lingard, Ashley Young, Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane.

There are more question marks for the Croatians — Danijel Subašić (clearly hampered by a hamstring in the end of the win over Russia), Dejan Lovren and Sime Vrsaljko (forced off with a knee injury against Russia) all recently missed training. Lovren does not seem to really be at risk of missing Wednesday’s game and reports are that Subašić’s absence from training was precautionary more than anything else so we have included both in our assumed lineup. We have though replaced Vrsaljko with veteran center back Vedran Ćorluka under the assumption that Domagoj Vida will slide out to right back replacing Vrsaljko making room for Ćorluka in the middle.

Croatia have played a few different formations this summer in Russia, but each has had four at the back, five in the midfield and a lone striker up top. Here is the assumed XI for Croatia: Danijel Subasic, Ivan Strinić, Vedran Ćorluka, Dejan Lovren, Domagoj Vida, Marcelo Brozović, Ivan Rakitić, Ivan Perišić, Ante Rebić, Luka Modrić and Mario Mandžukić

Again we ran four different types of models on this game. As a quick refresher; ELO is a rating system which provides an implied win expectancy based on the teams’ rating. Note: ELO (The Electric Light Orchestra) is also one of the bestest rock bands to come out of the UK. Their self titled album released in 1971 was brilliant, featuring the track “Look At Me Now”. Back to the predictions…

Our original model is a blend of both team and player related features. Then we isolated the team features, isolated the player features and ran them each individually. All four models favor England.

ELO