# World Cup Prediction Competition



## barry houdini (May 26, 2014)

Hello everybody, it's now just 17 days until the the start of the biggest sporting event on the planet (possibly).

Some of you may remember my *World Cup prediction competition from 2010. *That competition was won by Gearcutter and the Barnardos charity ended up £68.71 better off.

I'm doing the same this time round - here are 10 reasons you should enter.......

1.) It's free
2.) It's simple
3.) As long as at least 15 people enter I'll donate £50 to a recognised charity of the winner's choice
4.) You can test your football knowledge against some of the world's top excel experts (and me)
5.) It's free
6.) You can follow your progress and compare against other participants in a no-expense-spared-state-of-the-art excel spreadsheet
7.) It's still free
8.) er.......
9.) that's it

Here's what you do

Open the attached workbook
Fill in your predicted scores for all 48 group games (I've filled in the first one as an example - obviously you can change that score!)
Fill in a name (the name you want displayed - use an alias if you wish)
Fill in the "tie-breaker" under "Goals" - that's how many goals you think will be scored in total in those 48 games.
Now save the workbook and either post it in a reply to this thread or email it to me at *barrydothoudiniatvirgindotnet*
Option 2 is preferable - especially if you don't want others to see your predictions.
If you want to contribute to the winning charity then you can paypal to my email address above - any contributions will be added to the final amount.......although there is absolutely no obligation to do so.

Rules

Scoring is as follows:

A rank is displayed against every team based on the current world rankings, and converted to a ranking within the 32 world cup qualifiers [the "highest" rank is 1]. If you predict a draw and the result is a draw (any draw) you get 3 points. If you predict a win for the higher ranked team and that team wins (by any score) you get 2 points, if you predict a win for the lower ranked team and that team wins you get 4 points. you get 2 additional points if you get the exact score right.

For example in game 1 Brazil play Croatia and Brazil are higher ranked (4 to 19) so if you predict a 2-1 win for Brazil and they win 2-1 you get 4 points, 2 for predicting a win by the higher placed team, and 2 for the correct score. If you predict 2-1 and the result is 3-1 then you'll just get the 2 points etc......

All scores are added and the highest score after 48 games is the winner. Any ties will be decided by the tie-breaker in favour of the closest guess. If it's still tied then kudos and charity are shared.

Predictions need to be emailed to me or posted here by 19:00 BST on Thursday 12th June 2014 - that's 2 hours before the kick-off of the first game.

I will be adding my predictions and posting a spreadsheet back here showing all predictions and a table that will update as you enter the scores. Remember, if you don't want to see your name in lights - use an alias

Advice

It's meant to be fun - anybody taking it too seriously will be ridiculed

If you don't know anything about football (e.g. Chelsea supporters) don't let that stop you entering - for those of you who really know nothing about football, typical top level football games average just over 2 goals a game, so you may not get very far predicting 8-7 scorelines.......

In the last World Cup in South Africa in 2010 the 48 group games produced a total of only 101 goals (2.104 per game on average).

Good luck

Any questions please feel free to post here

Here's the *workbook*


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## Alphacsulb (May 27, 2014)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0tmgbbt7t8neyu5/Alphacsulb_WorldCup.xlsx


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## barry houdini (May 27, 2014)

Thanks Alphacsulb,

That's the first entry at MrExcel but I have several from Excelforum - if you aren't sure whether to enter please do so - you have nothing to lose!


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## barry houdini (Jun 9, 2014)

OK, there's has been a limited response at MrExcel, although I have 14 entries in all (including me).

If you haven't yet entered and are wondering whether to try - please do, there's nothing to lose!


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## PaddyD (Jun 10, 2014)

My prediction - England lose penalty shoot out to Germany.


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## barry houdini (Jun 10, 2014)

PaddyD said:


> My prediction - England lose penalty shoot out to Germany.



I'd settle for that, Paddy

England can't meet Germany until the final (or 3rd place play-off)


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## barry houdini (Jun 11, 2014)

Any more entries?

You have until tomorrow at 19:00 BST to enter. After that I'll post a workbook with all predictions - you can fill in the actual scores and see how you do, good luck!


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## wigi (Jun 12, 2014)

I submitted my entry a couple of minutes ago.

Good luck to all!


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## barry houdini (Jun 12, 2014)

Thanks Wigi!

If anybody else is interested you have 45 minutes left to enter!

I now have 19 entries in all - in 2010 it was 20 so it would be nice to match that


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## barry houdini (Jun 12, 2014)

OK, here are all the entries as promised. Just fill in the scores (in green cells) as the matches are played and the league table will update automatically.

Note that the times of the games has changed on 22 June. I haven't corrected that but you will have to enter results out of order

See *here*


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## Joe4 (Jun 13, 2014)

My prediction is that there will be lots of flopping and controversy!
Wait, that already happened (and there has only been one game so far)...


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## schielrn (Jun 26, 2014)

I still have a small hope of winning this.

I just need Belgium to beat South Korea 1-0 and Russia to beat Algeria 1-0.


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## Cards (Jun 26, 2014)

schielrn said:


> I still have a small hope of winning this...



Good luck schielrn!

I can't believe I too have a chance. I know absolutely nothing about soccer. When I made my prediction I didn't even know it was possible to tie. My predictions were literally based on =RANDBETWEEN(1,4). I have no idea how I'm still in it.


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## Taul (Jun 26, 2014)

Well, I finished in a reasonably respectable place somewhere in the middle, which is cool considering my predictions were made without looking at the team names. Is that considered random? I’m not too sure.
Just wanted to say thanks to Barry Houdini for arranging this with an excellent spreadsheet, it has held more interest for me over the past few weeks than the actual world cup and far more interesting than listening to people grunt on the Wimbledon Tennis courts.
Thank you Barry 

paul.


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## barry houdini (Jun 27, 2014)

Ok, sorry for the delay but the winner was Ragulduy with 74 points, Cards was a close second with 72 and schielrn was 3rd with 71.

It was really close. If it wasn't for that Algerian equaliser schielrn would have sneaked a 1 point win........and if it wasn't for all those dubious England predictions I might have finished somewhere other than mid table 

Thanks to everybody who participated - I hope you enjoyed it. £80 + tax will be going to a charity chosen by Ragulduy

See you in 4 years!


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## pjckmen (Jul 4, 2014)

Holland will win the World Cup 2014. :D


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