The extremely compact schedule of the soccer World Cup did not give time to catch one's breath.
Only now, between the games in the round of 16 and quarterfinals, do the teams come to rest if they are not already eliminated.
32 nations started with small, big and very big hopes, eight are still in Qatar.
Before the tournament, Daniel Memmert and Fabian Wunderlich showed who the favorites were in their World Cup forecast.
How did they fare?
Who surprised?
And above all: What are the chances of the remaining teams now for the title?
Tobias Rabe
Responsible editor for Sport Online.
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The great value of the pre-tournament forecast can be seen in the fact that of the eight teams listed at the top with the greatest probability of winning the World Cup, six still have a chance of winning the World Cup.
Only Spain (lost in the round of 16 against Morocco) and Germany (lost in the preliminary round) are no longer there, but those Moroccans (22nd place with an original title chance of 0.4 percent) and Croatia (12th place, 1.7 percent) are no longer there ).
Memmert describes Morocco's entry into the quarter-finals, which prevailed against Spain on penalties, as the biggest surprise of this World Cup.
“A look at the World Cup forecast before the tournament shows that, where Morocco was among the weaker teams.
But even without clear facts and figures, every expert and fan would probably confirm that,” he says.
"In terms of the quarter-finals, however, the course is anything but surprising." The favorites prevailed in the majority.
"German group as an example"
Wunderlich not only looked at the overall forecast, but also at those of the games that appeared daily on FAZ.NET and compared them with the results.
"If we look at our forecasts for the individual games, then we see that the favorites have prevailed more often than the underdogs, but not quite as often as our numbers would have predicted," he says.
“So in that sense, there were a little more surprises than expected, especially in the group stage.
The German group is the best example of this.” There, Japan advanced first, Spain second.
As in 2018, Germany dropped out early.
And who will really be world champion?
The name of the top favorite in the forecast based on the betting market data has not changed.
"As before the tournament, Brazil, France and Argentina are included," says Memmert.
“However, the probabilities have clearly shifted in the direction of Brazil.
In addition to England, Portugal has also played its way into the group of absolute favourites.”
Compared to the probabilities, six remaining teams have increased their chances in percentage terms, which is obvious since three quarters of the teams that had small but still existing chances were eliminated.
Your shares are now distributed.
But there are also two nations whose values have actually fallen, albeit marginally: Argentina and the Netherlands.
"The performances on the field so far in the tournament are reflected in the prognosis," says Wunderlich.
In addition, the tournament tree now plays an important role.
“The beneficiaries of this are Brazil and Portugal, for example, who caught the somewhat easier opponents in the quarter-finals in comparison.
Argentina and the Netherlands were hit hard, as they first have to play each other and then face top favorites Brazil in the semi-finals.
This also explains why these teams' chances of winning the title have actually decreased slightly since the start of the tournament."
Now that all the data and facts are open, the question of tension remains.
"With Brazil there is a very clear top favorite, but still with less than a third of the title probability," says Memmert.
“And the other teams are very close to each other.
So there will be excitement in the fight for the title.” The answer to the question of whether everything turned out as predicted or completely different will only be answered on December 18th, in the final stadium of Lusail for the grand finale of this World Cup.