Olympic Soccer is Kicking Off!

Today the first games of the Olympic Soccer Tournament are taking place across Japan. Postponed since 2020 it feels a huge relief that they are actually here, and from a spectator point of view, so hot on the heals of the regional championships (from our European perspective, the UEFA Euros) it feels like a summer feast of football.

Rather than individual Home Nations, for the second time ever there is a combined Team GB for women's game, although there will be no men's team. 

Team GB had a great start at 8.30am this morning (GMT) beating Chile 2-0. 

Elsewhere Australia beat neighbours New Zealand 2-1, Netherlands won 10-3 (yes ten-three!!!!!) versus Zambia, but most surprisingly of all Sweden won against the USA by a clear 3-0 margin. That the USA lost is a slight surprise, but for Sweden to do so in such a confident manner was not predicted.

Team GB next play on Saturday 24th July  in a big game against hosts Japan, before completing the group stage next Tuesday 27th July.

Historically, The USA won inaugural Olympic Gold for women's soccer and have tended to dominate it ever since. But the Olympic Football tournament more broadly dates back to 1900 when an Amateur Great British mens team won Gold, and in fact won it again in two out of the next three editions (the exception being 1904). So, Great Britain does have genuine Olympic Gold heritage. 

So, after 109 years of hurt, it's time that gold came home! Come on Team GB!

Olympic Gold: Feeling Homesick?

FACTOID: Why no men's team in 2012? The BBC website perhaps articulates it best:

"In 2012, when London was hosting, Team GB put forward a men's team for the first time. But subsequent attempts to re-form in 2016 were shelved after the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish football associations didn't back the plans and they haven't been tried again. Because of England's failure to get out of the groups at the Under-21 Euros, Team GB wouldn't have qualified anyway."

Euro 2020(2021) Predictions: How did we do? How did we compare?

We are very pleased to present our full technical report, which includes a detailed summary of our predictions of the UEFA Euro Championship 2020 (held in 2021).

We conclude that the tournament was exciting and also somewhat unpredictable, and compare our own predictions with those of other publicised predictions and scenarios including Daily Mirror and University of Reading.

The full report can be found here

Euro 2021 Round of 16: England Prevail but Brave Wales Stumble

Of the British Home Nations, valiant Scotland fell at the Group Stage, meaning that only England and Wales progressed to the Round of 16.

Predicting the results, Alex was not very confident of Wales nor England's chances, predicting the Welsh exit (although underestimating Danish firepower) but not calling England's rare win over Germany.

Kevin believed Wales would beat Denmark after a penalty shoot-out, but also predicting that Germany would prevail of England after yet another shoot-out.

The dice correctly predicted a Wales defeat and an England victory, as well as some high-scoring games.

Overall, Alex and Kevin both correctly predicted 2 correct outcomes but no correct shorelines. The dice however got an amazing 5 correct outcomes and even 1 exactly correct scoreline, bizarrely predicting the eight-goal thriller between Croatia and Spain, we did not see that one coming.

So, we conclude that this was a chaotic and seemingly random set of results but very entertaining. Roll on the Quarter-finals...

	AG	KT	Dice	Actual Score
Wales v Denmark	1-2	1-1  (Wales win on pens)	1-2	0-4
Italy v Austria	3-1	2-0	1-0	2-1
Netherlands v Czech Rep	2-1	2-2  (Neths win on pens)	0-0  score   5-3 after extra time	0-2
Belgium v Portugal	2-3	3-2	2-1	1-0
Croatia v Spain	2-1	1-0	3-5	3-5
France v Switzerland	4-0	3-0	2-5	3-3  (4-5)
England v Germany	2-3	1-1 (Germany win on pens)	1-0	2-0
Sweden v Ukraine	2-2  (sweden win on penalties)	2-0	2-6	1-2