- Klement hailed as football world’s new oracle
- Also predicts South Korea will stun Brazil
German economist and research analyst Joachim Klement is currently being hailed as the football world’s newest oracle by predicting that Netherlands will win the upcoming FIFA World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico.
His complex forecast model has kept a 100% record of predicting the Soccer World Cup winner since 2014, and now the Dutch stand to become the fourth of four predicted winners to fulfil Klement’s prophecy, if they lift the coveted Jules Rimet Trophy in July.
Klement has designed a mathematical forecasting model that blends hard economic, demographic, and geographic variables (such as GDP per capita, climate, and population size), with sporting data and historical parameters.
Ironically, he had originally built the model to satirise his own profession and expose the ‘hubris of economists’ who he says believe they can forecast anything.
However, his system has ended up gaining a perfect hundred percent success rate by correctly predicting the eventual champions for three successive FIFA World Cup editions – 2014 (Germany), 2018 (France) and 2022 (Argentina), respectively.
He has therefore, according foreign news agency reports, emerged the new oracle trumping Paul the Octopus – who had predicted all of Germany’s results correctly at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
For the forthcoming tournament, the German economist’s algorithm has tipped the Netherlands to clinch their maiden global title in the Americas, predicting they will prevail over Ronaldo’s Portugal at the final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on 19 July.
The Oranje (Dutch) hold the unfortunate distinction of featuring in the most FIFA World Cup finals (1974, 1978 and 2010) without ever winning it outright, but have managed to reach the knockout phase in each tournament they’ve taken part in since 1974.
As well as the winners, Klement’s model also maps out the breadth of the 48-team tournament which is the 23rd edition in FIFA World Cup history.
According to his formula, Japan is bound to grab world headlines with a sensational victory over five-times winner Brazil in the second round, to Scotland being toppled by unheralded South Korea at the same stage.
For Klement, a self-professed ‘pessimist’ who has resided in London for a decade while working as a strategist at investment bank Panmure Liberum, his research has not been about protecting anyone from heartbreak, or winning big bets.
Instead, he has strived to reveal the absurdity of trying to predict outcomes. World Cup success is partly determined by known ‘systemic’ factors, such as national population, wealth, climate and FIFA World Rankings.
However, Klement has urged readers of his quadrennial forecast – to take its contents with a pinch of salt, since such factors only reveal part of the story.
“The other 50% is luck,” he has insisted. “Every match – particularly when you have these high-quality teams playing against each other that are very similar in skills and quality – it really hinges on the form of the day, a ref call, a piece of luck in the sense of hitting the post versus the ball going in. Things like that are totally unpredictable.”
Third-eight-year-old Lionel Messi-led three-times winner Argentina will go into the 11 June to 19 July long competition as title-holders, while seeking a repeat of the heroics from four years before in Qatar.