This page contains bivariable explorations between the proportion of games won and various predictors for each country that has participated in the FIFA World Cup.
To ensure comparability between countries in this exploratory analysis, the following additional variables were created:
prop_w. Proportion of games a country has won in the
World Cup. Calculated as the number of games a country has won in the
World Cup divided by the number of games a country has played in the
World Cup (w / pld) gf_per_game. Average number of goals a country has
scored against opponents (i.e. “goals for”) per game. Calculated as the
total number of goals a country has scored against opponents in the
World Cup divided by the number of games a country has played in the
World Cup (gf / pld) ga_per_game. Average number of goals scored against a
country per game. Calculated as the total number of goals scored against
a country in the World Cup divided by the number of games a country has
played in the World Cup (ga / pld) There is a negative association between FIFA Ranking and the proportion of games won in the World Cup. As a team’s FIFA Ranking increases (i.e. moves further away from the #1 slot), the proportion of games won in the World Cup decreases. This is expected due to the FIFA ranking scheme that assigns the #1 slot to the top performing team.
There is a positive association between number of times a country has participated in the World Cup and the proportion of games won. This is expected, as teams that that win a high proportion of the games are likely some of the best teams and make it to more World Cup tournaments as a result.
There is a positive association between the number of games played and the proportion of games won in the World Cup. This is expected, as teams that that are doing well and winning a high proportion of games have the opportunity to advance further in the tournament and play a higher number of games.
There is a positive association between the average number of goals a country has scored against opponents (i.e. “goals for”) per game and the proportion of games a country has won in the World Cup. This is expected, as teams that that are doing well and winning a high proportion of the games are scoring more goals per game than teams that are not doing as well.
There is a negative association between the average number of goals scored against a country (i.e. “goals against”) per game and the proportion of games a country has won in the World Cup. This is expected, as teams that that are doing well and winning a high proportion of the games are receiving less goals scored against them than teams that are not doing as well.