Yesterday was the end of round one for the group stage − this means that all 32 teams have played at least once (in fact, Brazil and Mexico have now played twice). So, it was time for us to update our model including a new measure of 'current form' for each of the team.

There's an unusual lack of optimism surrounding the England football team heading into this World Cup; for the first time in (my) living memory no-one is talking about how it 'could be our year'. In fact, there's a very real risk that England won't even make it out of their group with Uruguay and Italy slight favourites to advance to the round of 16. While going out in the group stages is on nobody's wish list, it nevertheless comes with one crumb of comfort: no penalty shootouts.

This is the first follow up to our previous (slightly technical and detailed) post on our World Cup predictions. First off a quick and simplified recap on the model and then off with some predictions!

This is the first post of a fairly regular series dedicated to the impending FIFA World Cup. Marta and I discussed this at the end of a barbecue at our place a few weeks back and since then we have done some work to develop this model.