Wednesday World Cup Projections: France, Denmark Likely to Advance

Group C and Group D take center stage on Wednesday after which half of the quarterfinalists will be decided.

So, who's likely to advance out of the group stage? My projections can help us determine that.

My projections simulate each game 250,000 times and are powered by my colleague BJ Cunningham‘s offensive and defensive power ratings for each team. Using his power ratings, I use something called diagonal-inflated bivariate poisson to simulate the scoring distribution for each game.

Here are my projections for day 11 of the 2022 World Cup.

Wednesday World Cup Projections

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Group D: Australia vs. Denmark (10 a.m. ET)

• Denmark are 71.8% favorites to win according to my simulations.
• Australia have been lucky, netting a win despite only 1.05 xG total through two games.
• Denmark's power ratings have decreased since the start of the tournament, but they are still a far superior team to Australia.

Group D: Tunisia vs. France (10 a.m. ET)

• France are 74.1% favorites to win according to my simulations.
• Their power ratings have improved since the start of the tournament with two dominant games.
• Having already clinched a knockout position and almost surely the top seed, France are likely to rotate their players.
• That means I'd shy away from trusting my projections here as Tunisia are likely to keep this game closer than expected.

Group C: Poland vs. Argentina (2 p.m. ET)

• Argentina are 55.9% favorites to win according to my simulations.
• Poland have struggled through two games, playing both Mexico and Saudi Arabia about equally.
• Argentina have also struggled, but they came into the tournament much stronger than Poland and remain that way by our power ratings.

Group C: Saudi Arabia vs. Mexico (2 p.m. ET)

• Mexico are 52.7% favorites to win according to my simulations.
• I have applied a small regional advantage to Saudi Arabia.
• Saudi Arabia have played Poland equally well and were unlucky in the goal department.
• They were lucky against Argentina so they come into this game about where they were entering the tournament.
• This projects to be the lowest scoring game of the day.