Part 2: On opening games

After bursting a few bubbles with the first post evaluating the probability of a team winning a match when they score the first goal, it is only natural to begin to think about how important the first game of a tournament is for every team.

Turns out the first result is extremely important in determining whether a team advances to the second round.

Again, taking only the last five World Cups as our statistical record, it turns out that teams that win their first World Cup game have an 85 percent probability of advancing to the second round. Only 9 out of 60 teams that opened their World Cup campaign with a victory, didn’t make it past the group stage. Here is a list of the teams that failed to advance after winning it's first game.

2002:

Costa Rica — The Ticos happened to open the World Cup with the weakest team in the group, China. They made the most of it and came out with a 2-0. Costa Rica drew Turkey late in their second game but a lopsided 5-2 loss to Brazil in their final game meant the Ticos missed out on goal differential.

Argentina — La albiceleste came to the tournament as one of the heavily favored sides to win it all in 2002. A hard fought 1-0 win against Nigeria wasn’t enough in the end as the South American power went on to lose 1-0 against England and drew Sweden 1-1 in the final game to finish third in the group for an early and embarrassing exit of the tournament.

Russia — Russia opened their World Cup with a 2-0 win over Tunisia, but their fortune quickly turned around for the worse as they fell to host Japan and Belgium in their next two games.

2006

Czech Republic — In 2006, the Czech Republic was seen as the leading dark horse candidate to go far into tournament, similarly as to how Colombia and Belgium are seen today. They got everyone’s hopes up with a big 3-0 win against the United States in their opening match, but the excitement was short-lived as they fell surprisingly against Ghana, and later Italy to finish third on their group.

Korea Republic — This one wasn’t really a surprise. South Korea trailed debutant Togo in the second half and it wasn’t until the African side had a player sent off that Korea was able to come back and win the game 2-1. Korea did surprise France in their second game drawing them late but a loss to the Swiss left them off the second round.

2010

Switzerland — In South Africa, Switzerland scored only one goal. In a counter and after a series of rebounds Gelson Fernandes scored for the Swiss to stun Spain 1-0. The Swiss crashed out of the group stage after they lost to Chile 1-0 and failed to beat Honduras in their third game.

2014

Ivory Coast — After being drawn in very difficult groups in 2006 and 2010, this looked to be the year for the Ivory Coast, especially after they began with a 2-1 victory against Japan, only two go on to lose twice against Colombia and Greece.

Italy — The Azzurri had an embarrassing 2010 crashing out at the group stage while being the defending world champs, surely it can happen to them twice in a row right? Especially when they started by defeating England 2-1. Well, it can and it did. Italy went on to lose by Costa Rica and later got chewed by Uruguay (haha, Get it?) by the same scoreline. Hopefully they can do better this time around… oh wait!

With the exception of Switzerland in 2010 the other eight teams only managed to beat the team that eventually finished last in their group, so if things don’t go well for your team nor the team you beat on round 1, you may be in a bit of trouble.

The Dark Side

Now that you know how important the first result is for your World Cup success, here is the opposite perspective. Teams that lose their opening match have only an 11.67 percent chance of advancing to the knockout round.

That means only 7 out of 60 have managed to accomplish this. These are the comeback masters:

2002

Turkey — Under no circumstance, you want to start playing against Brazil, but despite a close 2-1 loss in their opening match, Turkey tied Costa Rica and then went on to beat China to secure second place. Not only did they advanced out of their group but they reached the semifinals to lose to Brazil for the second time.

2006

Ghana — The Black Stars made their World Cup debut against Italy and lost 2-0 but Ghana turned things around and defeated the Czech Republic and the United States to advance.

Ukraine — It’s hard to recover from losing your first game in a tournament, getting thrashed 4-0 by Spain is far from an ideal start, but Ukraine managed to bounce right back with a 4-0 win against Saudi Arabia followed by a 1-0 win against Tunisia and went all the way to the quarterfinals only get thrashed 3-0 by Italy.

2010

Spain — The pre-world cup favorite had a rough start in 2010 with a figurative kick to the chest in their opener against Switzerland, followed by a literal kick to the chest courtesy of Nigel De Jong in the final. Despite dominating their game against the Swiss, Spain lost 1-0, but from that point La Roja went on to win six straight games outscoring opponents 8-1 to win their first ever world title.

2014

Greece — The 2014 World Cup gave us a statistical anomaly with three teams advancing after losing their first match. Greece got pounced by Colombia 3-0 in their opening game, salvaged a scoreless draw against Japan and a late win against the Ivory Coast was enough to see them through the Round of 16.

Uruguay — The sensation of 2010, was stunned by Costa Rica the sensation of 2014. Despite the predicament, the Uruguayan side found itself early, wins over England and Italy was enough to advance.

Algeria — After losing to Belgium in their opener, the Algerian team was able to defeat South Korea and draw Russia to secure its place in the next round.

It is worth noting that all of the teams that have lost its opener and then went onto the second round, either lost to the seeded team in the group or were the seeded team.

Under that presumption, this statistic would mean that the losing team in these games it’s pretty much done for as there is no statistical precedent to cling on:

Uruguay v. Egypt

Iran v. Morocco

Denmark v. Peru

Nigeria v. Croatia

Serbia v. Costa Rica

Korea Republic v. Sweden

England v. Tunisia

Japan v. Colombia

It’s ON!

To wrap things up I’ll include the boring statistic of what happens in case of a tie in the opening game. Those teams have a statistical probability of 57.89 percent of advancing past the group stage.