I have a couple of posts in the pipeline for my other website that explore a hypothetical merger between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, and I started thinking about the probability of Caribbean countries qualifying for the World Cup from CONCACAF and how that might change in a larger 50-team region. (With 30 associations, the Caribbean countries […]
Way back at the beginning of this site, I linked to a page that simulated match results for the 2006 World Cup finals, based on a Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation. That same site is preparing a similar simulation for the 2010 World Cup.I promised in that long-ago post to post an explanation of MCMC […]
I've seen a number of websites performing mock draws and projections leading up to the World Cup draw later today. To be brutally honest, I really don't care for much of them. They're nice as far as conversation starters are concerned, but I doubt that they have much utility beyond that. I have my own […]
One application that I didn't mention in applied mathematics problems for soccer is the gaming industry. Betting decisions and devising odds are two examples. To this end, here is a simulation of match results at the 2006 World Cup using a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. I'm traveling from Florida to Arizona tomorrow so […]
