Failure™ Magazine

Soccernomics

Journalist Simon Kipur and sports economist Stefan Szymanski team up to dispel myths about the world’s most popular sport.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Sports

In terms of international tournaments, which countries seem poised to experience greater success over the course of the next few decades?
Large and wealthy countries where interest in soccer has grown rapidly. That means the U.S., and to a lesser extent Japan and Australia. Further down the road, look at increasingly soccer-mad Canada, as well as China and India. It used to be fashionable to say that an African country would soon win a World Cup, but Japan or the U.S. will likely do so first. I see the U.S.’s strong performances against Spain and Brazil [in the semifinal and final of the 2009 Confederations Cup, respectively] as harbingers of an American rise.

Do you have any thoughts about how England might fare in its upcoming World Cup match against the U.S.?
What I’d say, impressionistically, is that the U.S. has a very decent shot at a tie. When the World Cup is held in Europe, the Europeans teams seem to have a modicum of home-field advantage, but that won’t be the case in South Africa.

Have you considered the World Cup draw? Can you venture a prediction as to which countries will advance to the Round of 16? And which country has the best chance of winning the tournament?
Player wages predict the performance of club teams almost perfectly, but the correlation between a country’s population, gross domestic product (GDP), and soccer experience on the one hand, and its national team’s performance on the other hand, is much weaker. (In the book, we say that population + GDP per capita + experience predicts about twenty-five percent of a country’s success in international soccer.)

What we found researching the Spanish-language edition of the book, though, is that Spain has been the world’s second soccer superpower for some years now. Since 2000, Spain has consistently performed as well as Brazil, losing only 12 percent of its games.

I’m picking Brazil to win the World Cup, as it almost always has the best individual players, and usually wins the tournament when it’s held outside Europe. But the U.S. is my dark horse.

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