The second day of the World Cup 2022 in Qatar is here. Group B plays their first matches today. The group consists of England, Iran, United States, and Wales. The group should be ultra competitive since all teams are ranked in the top 20 of FIFA's World Rankings.
This generation of United States players is considered a golden generation. In fact, the US team is the second youngest team at the World Cup. Our team has international experience. We are coming off of a Gold Cup victory in 2021 which was our first since 2017. However, only one player on the United States roster, DeAndre Yedlin, has ever played in a World Cup.
With all that being said, many pundits expect/believe that the United States should qualify from Group B and head into the knockout stage. I wanted to look at the data and see if there was any evidence that supports that belief.
Before we jump in, I want to thank Maven Analytics for posting this dataset. If you would like to take a look at the data and make a case for your team, feel free to jump into the data here. If you would like to see how I put together the graphics for this report, check that out here With all of that out of the way, here is my case for the United States to make it to the knockout stages.
Young But Experienced
As I mentioned in the introduction, the United States heads into the World Cup with the second youngest squad at the tournament by half a year with the youngest squad being Ghana. If you remove the outlier of Tim Ream who is 35 years old, our team would be the youngest team in the tournament.
Some would argue that age is just a number, however this United States team only has one player who has ever played in a World Cup match, DeAndre Yedlin. He will most likely not feature in the United States starting 11, so we will feature a squad that has never played in a World Cup for our pivotal first match against Wales.
Based on what you've read so far, it would be hard to argue that this team is experienced. However, I would argue that this team has the experience needed to be successful. Historically, a United States National Team consists of players who play on club teams from less prestigious leagues like the MLS. The teams who are successful in World Cups have a majority of players who play in the top 5 leagues in the world: Premier League in England, Bundesliga in Germany, La Liga in Spain, Serie A in Italy, and Ligue 1 in France.
You can see from above that England has 21 players out of their 26 man roster that play in one of the top 5 leagues. The United States has the second most players in the top 5 leagues in the group. While this does not guarantee that the United States will be successful, it shows the skill that this generation of players have.
Talent alone does not win games in the World Cup though. The experience that these 9 United States players gain on a weekly basis playing against the top competition in the world will be instrumental to helping them advance in the group. It also stresses the importance of our first match against Wales as they have 5 players who also play in the top 5 leagues.
FIFA Believes that We Will Win
FIFA rankings are not a perfect science. It is borderline impossible to rank teams from across the world that do not play against one another. How does a win in North America compare to a win in Asia or Europe for example. The past three years have added even more difficulties for FIFA to rank teams as international friendlies have been harder to schedule with the Coronavirus pandemic limiting travel.
With those caveats out of the way, there is value to the rankings, or there would be no point to put them out. England is the highest ranked team according to FIFA's rankings at 5. The United States is the second highest at 16. Wales and Iran are ranked 19 and 20 respectively. Based on these rankings, the United States should be favored to place 2nd in the group.
Dealing with the Lion in the Room
The two metrics from above paint England as the clear favorite to win this group. It would be hard to put together a case that would contradict that. With that being said, the second qualification spot from the group is up for grabs. Getting a result against England for any of the remaining three teams could be pivotal. I took a look at the match results since 2010 for the other three teams in the group against top-10 competition.
| Team | Percent of Win/Tie |
|---|---|
| Iran | 0% |
| United States | 40% |
| Wales | 20% |
Looking at those results, it is not likely that any team gets a result against England. However, the United States have gotten results against teams with England's quality double the amount of time as Wales. If a result happens against England in the group, it will most likely be on Black Friday when the United States faces England.
To B or not to B the Second Best Team of the Group
Iran, the United States, and Wales are all ranked between 16 and 20 in the FIFA world rankings as we saw earlier. The final survivor of the group will most likely be decided by who can get results against the other two teams since England may be untouchable. I took a look at each team's results since 2010 against teams ranked between 11 and 30 in the FIFA rankings. Here are those results:
| Team | Percent of Win/Tie |
|---|---|
| England | 77% |
| Iran | 67% |
| United States | 63% |
| Wales | 47% |
England looks likely to get a result against each team in the group as expected. The United States and Iran are very close in their results with Wales having the most grim outlook based on past results.
With those statistics, I wanted to look at the expected points from the group based on those results from the past 12 years. Based entirely on that, here is what the group would look like:
| Team | Expected Points |
|---|---|
| England | 5.318182 |
| Iran | 2.916667 |
| United States | 2.561404 |
| Wales | 2.133333 |
No surprise at the top, England is expected to get out of the group with ease. The last three spots are close. Less than a point separates Iran, the United States, and Wales.
Young, Scrappy, and Hungry
Most pundits believe that this group will be extremely close, and the data that I've provided definitely backs that up. The uniqueness of this World Cup is also a major factor with it being mid-season for most major leagues. The youth of the United States team is a major advantage here as cumulative fatigue should not be as big of a factor for this winter World Cup. I believe the combination of experience at the top level of club football and drive due to the failure to qualify in the previous World Cup will put the United States just above Iran and Wales.
