Today marks the beginning of the UEFA European Championship 2024, with the opening match between Germany and Scotland. The home championship, featuring games in Munich among other locations, is set to become a "Summer Fairy Tale 2.0". Good weather, a festive atmosphere, and a great tournament are anticipated. And the winners will be France? Or England? Maybe Germany?
According to the international research team inlcuding Dr. Gunther Schauberger (TUM, Chair of Epidemiology under Prof. Dr. Stefanie Klug) and other experts from the Universities of Innsbruck and Luxembourg, Molde University College, and the Technical University of Dortmund, France has the best chance of winning the European Championship. Utilizing a statistical model for predicting favorites, which has provided relatively reliable forecasts for international tournaments, the French team has a nearly 20% probability of winning.
"The term 'forecast' must be used cautiously in this context. Even though France is our favorite, our prediction still indicates that the team coached by Didier Deschamps has more than an 80% chance of not becoming the European champion," explains Schauberger, providing an outlook on the final round and potential title winner.
The forecast combines several statistical approaches and is based on four critical sources of information and data:
Ability assessments based on previous games over the last eight years
Betting odds from 27 international bookmakers
Average player ratings at club and national levels
Other team and country covariates, such as team structure and market value
The model, trained on the results of the European Championships from 2004 to 2020, estimates the goal probabilities for all possible encounters of the 24 participating teams. The probabilities of winning, drawing, or losing are calculated from these estimates. The winning probabilities for each team are finally determined through 100,000 simulations, considering the tournament tree and all UEFA rules. According to the forecast results, France is the top favorite with a 19.2% chance of winning the title, followed by England with 16.7%, and host Germany with 13.7%.
The outlook for the German team, led by national coach Julian Nagelsmann, to advance to the knockout stage is promising. In the simulation of the progression probability, the German team surpasses the group stage with a 95.2% chance. Not a given anymore, considering the recent tournaments. The probability of reaching the quarterfinals is also high at 65.7%. It looks a bit tighter for the semifinals: the model predicts 40.8%, and for the final entry, still 24.6% – no bad prospects for a successful home tournament.
"The results make me confident that we will see a successful German team that can bring football fever to Germany with their matches," concludes Prof. Dr. Stefanie Klug, Chair of Epidemiology.
In addition to Dr. Schauberger, Florian Felice and Christophe Ley (both from the University of Luxembourg), Andreas Groll (TU Dortmund), Lars Magnus Hvattum (Molde University College), and Achim Zeileis (University of Innsbruck) also worked on the project. Using the developed model, the research consortium generates probabilistic forecasts for the European Championship matches based on a refined machine-learning approach.
To the homepage of the Chair of Epidemiology
To the press release from the research association
To the entire forecast with interactive graphics
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Stefanie Klug
Chair of Epidemiology
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 56
80992 Munich
Tel.: +49 89 289 24950
Email: sekretariat.klug.epidemiologie(at)mh.tum.de
Dr. Gunther Schauberger
Chair of Epidemiology
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 56
80992 Munich
Tel.: +49 89 289 24955
Email: gunther.schauberger(at)tum.de
Text: Bastian Daneyko
Photos/Graphics: Achim Zeileis