Simulation gives England 3.8 per cent chance of winning 2018 Fifa World Cup

Whilst the England national football team has realistically long odds, 2014 winners Germany are ranked as having a 13.3 per cent chance of retaining the trophy.

These are outcomes from an uncertainty model devised by the University of Adelaide’s Steve Begg, who rates Australia as having a 0.1 per cent chance of winning the tournament.

Begg, a Professor of Decision-making and Risk Analysis in the University’s Australian School of Petroleum, has developed a ‘Monte Carlo simulation’ of the competition based on team rankings with other input including recent form.

The key idea behind the modern Monte Carlo technique is that rather than trying to work out every possible outcome of a complex system, enough possibilities are modelled to be able to estimate the chance of any particular outcome occurring.

“The outcomes of many decisions we make are uncertain because of things outside of our control,” said Prof Begg. “Uncertainty is crucial in predicting the chance of an oil or gas field being economic. In the World Cup, it determines the many ways the whole tournament might play out. What makes it so hard to predict is not just uncertainty in how a team will perform in general, but random factors that can occur in each match.”