Germany has the best chance of hoisting the FIFA World Cup once again, followed by Brazil and Spain, according to UBS Global Wealth Management.
The three countries ranked as the most likely to win the tournament — based on a Monte Carlo simulation of 10,000 virtual World Cup tournaments — according to the UBS report, "Investing and Football: 2018 World Cup in Russia." The firm then counted how many times in total simulations each of the 32 teams in the tournament won.
UBS said Germany's national team, known as Die Mannschaft, has a 24% chance of repeating as World Cup champions when the tournament is held in Russia June 14-July 15. Germany won the previous tournament in Brazil in 2014. Brazil has a 19.8% likelihood of winning, and Spain, 16.1%.
Five national teams in the tournament — Egypt, Tunisia, Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia and Panama — were give no chance of winning, according to UBS' simulations. Host nation Russia has a 1.6% chance.
In the report, UBS said, "By relying on a quantitative framework, we effectively put our emotions to one side. Although we prefer some teams over others, we strictly followed the predictions of the model."
