Worth More Than its Weight in Gold

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Analyzing the World Cup using Google Cloud

4 min readJul 15, 2018

Authored by: Steve Sandmeyer

After a 40-year run by the Jules Rimet Trophy from 1930 to 1970, the current World Cup Trophy was created in 1971 and was first awarded in 1974 to West Germany. It was formed from 18 carat gold and is worth more than $10m USD in today’s market. It currently sits under tight security at the World Football Museum in Zurich. It will be handed to the winning team only after their name is engraved on it — then after the official presentation — will be returned to FIFA who will keep it locked up until the next World Cup. Heady stuff for the folks who make a new replica trophy every four years (out of brass, not gold) to be presented to and awarded permanently for the winner. Simply put, it is the most coveted, prestigious and glorified trophy in all of sport.

For the third time in the last four World Cup tournaments, an all-European Final has occurred, as France meets Croatia for the Championship. It also marks our final match post as we provide our analysis of World Cup using Google Cloud.

How did they get here? France went 7–1–2 in qualifying, won Group C (2–0–1), ousted Argentina (4–3) in the round of 16, beat Uruguay (2–0) in the quarters and eliminated Belgium 1–0 in the semis. Croatia went 6–2–2 in qualifying, won Group D (3–0–0), edged Denmark 1–1 (3–2 PK) in the round of 16, edged host country Russia 2–2 (4–3 PK) in the quarters and came from behind to beat England 2–1 (ET) in the semis.

Differing paths for certain, as France has systematically advanced to their third ever World Cup Final appearance (Champion in 1998, runner-up in 2006), while Croatia not only advanced to their first World Cup Final ever, but became the first to do so having all three knockout matches go into extra time. Croatia has played 90 more minutes than France — essentially an extra match. Additionally, France has an extra day of rest, having dispatched of Belgium a day before Croatia advanced past England.

There is very little history between France and Croatia in an international setting. The most infamous meeting was France’s 2–1 victory in the semi-final back in 1998 on their home soil as France went on to win their one and only World Cup Trophy. Outside of that, a 2011 friendly produced a draw and the two nations have met a total of only 5 times overall.

France has been on a mission every since losing the 2016 Euro Final on their home soil to Portugal. Don’t take our word for it — as French manager Didier Deschamps puts it very succinctly: “Two years ago, I remember what happened two years ago. We will go into this final to win it as we have still not gotten over the [2016] final.” Croatia, meanwhile, is led by perhaps the most dynamic player in the tournament in Luka Modrić Modric is one of soccer’s rarities — a player with the ability to single-handedly change a game. If he does it again in the final, then he would be a worthy winner of the World Footballer of the Year award that Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have had a decade-long stranglehold upon.

From a lineup and player availability perspective, neither France nor Croatia is expected to make any changes and should likely roll out the identical XI they utilized in their respective semi-final victories. From a player familiarity perspective, there will be decent crossover, as both squads boast talent out La Liga (Spain) from the likes of Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid and Barcelona.

Win Probabilities

All four of our models are leaning towards France in this one — not dissimilar to how they were all favoring Croatia’s opponent in the semi-final, but I digress. Our player model has things the closest, because nearly all of our midfield features give Croatia the edge thanks to the stellar Modric and strong play across their midfield. All features built around the backline point towards France though, as do the majority of striker related features, but the difference is not as great as it is with the midfield features.

Player based

Croatia: 53.1% (1.18 xG)
France: 46.9% (1.22 xG)

Team based

Croatia: 40.2% (1.68 xG)
France: 59.8% (1.92 xG)

Both

Croatia: 41.3% (1.71 xG)
France: 58.7% (1.95 xG)

ELO

Croatia: 32.6%
France: 67.4%

Our ELO model is significantly further apart than any of the rest of our models and this is mostly a product of how these teams reached the final. At the start of the knockout round, France had roughly 40 ELO points on Croatia. However, since that time Croatia’s ELO has only gone up 14 points, while France has climbed nearly 100 points towards the summit of Mount ELO. This is because a win in regulation reflects much more favorably upon a team’s ELO than a win in extra time or penalties — France have only needed 90 minutes in each of their knockout games, while Croatia have not had that level of comfort in any of their wins.

Google Search calls the match in France’s favor, with a chance for extra time