HONG KONG — Sepp Blatter and the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the organizers of the World Cup, had better watch out — the quants have arrived and have put their infamous models to work in predicting the outcome of the World Cup that has just kicked off in South Africa.
Quants is shorthand for quantitative analysts, referring to the small group of mathematics wizards who took supercomputers and crunched numbers to predict the outcome of stock and bond markets. They almost took over and destroyed Wall Street. Now they have their eye on the World Cup.
One of the beauties of soccer is its unpredictability. After all, if economic power and soccer power were related, then the United States, Japan, China and Germany would be the major contenders. If it were based on the numbers of males between 15 and 34, the active ages for soccer players, then China (424.5 million) and India (423.9 million) would have the field to themselves, but neither qualified for the finals in South Africa.