While we still don’t know all of the participants in the 2022 World Cup, we do know all of the games – when they’ll be played, where they’ll be played and who, theoretically, could play. From November 21 to December 18, a total of 64 matches will be played in Qatar. So guess what? We will predict each of them.
Of course, we are seven months away from finalizing the lists. Players can get injured, players can play poorly, players can appear out of nowhere, managers can quit their jobs – the list of complicating factors is endless. Only a maniac would try to pick every World Cup game on April 5, but that’s why I’m here. I am your maniac.
Before we begin, however, a few points should be noted. To begin with, among the teams that still have playoffs to play, I just selected the countries with the best FIFA rankings and chose them for this exercise. (Go to Peru, Wales and Costa Rica. Sorry, New Zealand, Ukraine, Scotland, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.) In addition to this: Unless otherwise stated, all stats I mention in the article are from Stats Perform and come from a combination of World Cup Qualifiers and any continental tournaments that have taken place in the past year: CONCACAF Nations League 2021, the Copa America and the Euros last summer, and the Africa Cup of Nations earlier this year.
Finally, I brought in consultancy firm Twenty First Group, who built a model that combines individual player ratings and team performance to create a rating for each international team. With international football, there aren’t enough matches to really judge a team based on their recent results and the rosters are constantly changing, so this method attempts to address those issues. I will refer to their notes throughout this trip; it’s just another tool to guide us from start to finish.
Alright, let’s go!
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