Friends in fútbol,

We're off. Commish is bringing the HEAT for our first-ever World Cup PICKS email.

Our top three survivor picks (Denmark, England, Croatia) are all scary choices. The United States was our most over-picked team in the Pick'em (as expected) but they weren't our biggest statistical departure.

Why is all of this the case? SCROLL ON, WORLD CUP FRIENDS.

 

MATCHDAY 1 PICKS

• Pickles Pick'em
  • Summary | Group Stage Standings
• Old Man Buffon Survivor
  • Summary | Matchday 1 Standings
• Your group picks (get in a group with friends!)

 

Let's start with the United States, which found itself dropped into a very evenly matched Group B alongside England, Wales, and Iran.

Here are FiveThirtyEight's group advancement probabilities for each Group B team:

• England: 80%
• United States: 53%
• Iran: 35%
• Wales: 33%

And here's how we picked Group B in the Pick'em:

• England: Picked by 98.2% of us to advance (+18% over 538 probability)
• United States: 84.4% (+31.4%)
• Wales: 13.9% (-19%)
• Iran: 3.4% (-31.6%)

To be clear, Commish supports this U.S. overpicking. If there's ever a time for blind fandom, it's the damn World Cup. I'll never forget the pandemonium around me when the U.S. scored the winning goal against Algeria to advance from its 2010 group, and then the equalizing goal to send its Round of 16 match vs. Ghana to extra time.

There are few better sports dopamine kicks than a fortune-altering goal at the World Cup.

 

PICK STATS

 

Old Man Buffon Survivor

Why does Commish say our top three picks are scary?

Denmark (327 picks, 42%) is the 11th best team in the World Cup as judged by FiveThirtyEight/ESPN's Soccer Power Index. Its opponent, Tunisia, is 23rd best, and has a 31% likelihood of surviving the group.

Denmark is rightly favored but that's ANYTHING but a cakewalk. And when you look at our 2nd and 3rd biggest picks (England at 33% over Iran; Croatia at 27% over Morocco), you get a similar story.

Croatia-Morocco is especially striking, as SPI has Croatia as the 12th best team and Morocco as the 15th best team in the field.

Alas, Commish would NEVER criticize us getting bold with our picks. Quite the opposite. You can never win a SZN competition without a little Moxie, and in a Survivor where draws count the same as wins and you must survive NINE picks to advance to the Knockout Stage... you're gonna need to pick some evenly matched games and live to tell about it.

 

• Top picks: Denmark (42%, vs. Tunisia), England (33%, vs. Iran), Croatia (27%, vs. Morocco), Argentina (27%, vs. Saudi Arabia), Ecuador (23%, vs. Qatar)
• We had 10 teams get picked by at least 10% of us, with Uruguary, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, and France rounding out that list
• 27 teams got at least one pick, including lone picks on Senegal (vs. Netherlands), Canada (vs. Belgium), and Australia (vs. France)
• No one could muster the Moxie to pick Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Iran, Ghana, or Serbia
• Group D was our most active group, receiving 19.2% of all picks. The two Group D matches in this first Matchday are Denmark-Tunisia and France-Australia
• 66 people (8.5%) took the U.S. right out of the gates against Wales. 3 people, likely from the UK, took Wales in that same game.
• It'll be interesting to watch the pick utilization rate on the tournament favorites as we go. Brazil, the tourney favorites, got 74 picks (9.5%) in Matchday 1
• That means those 74 people cannot use Brazil again
• Similarly, France got 118 picks (15.2%), Spain 121 (15.6%), and Argentina 207 (26.7%)
• It seems inevitable we'll have to get bolder as we go in Matchdays 2 and 3

 

 

Pickles Pick'em

While the U.S. was our most overpicked team (relative to advancement probability), it wasn't by much. We were +31.3% on Belgium (94.3% pick rate vs. 63% advancement probability) and +27.6% on Denmark (92.6% vs. 65%).

And our biggest statistical departure was on the flip side - we gave Morocco just 8.4% of our selections and yet FiveThirtyEight has them at a 46% chance to survive Group F - just behind Croatia's 55% and ahead of Canada's 36%.

If you follow our emails for other sports (notably, the NFL), you know that overpicking favorites is one of the few guaranteed things in life. It's arguably the defining characteristic of any pick'em, ever. And by the same logic, we underpick underdogs.

We gave Iran just 3.4% of our picks in Group B, largely owing to our prefernce for backing the U.S. That's a whopping 31.6% behind Iran's actual chances of surviving the group (35%, ahead of Wales' 33%)

Even lowly Saudi Arabia, slotted into a Group C containing three good teams (Argentina, Mexico, Poland), has a 24% chance of advancing. WE GAVE THEM ONE PICK.

So, if you backed a handful of underdogs in the Pickles Pick'em group stage, you should be feeling pretty good about both your Moxie and your odds of success heading into the Knockout Stage.

 

• Every single one of us picked Brazil to advance out of Group G
• The next most picked teams: Argentina (99.7%, Group C), Netherlands (98.3%, Group A), England (98.2%, Group B), France (98.2%, Group D), and Germany (96.6%, Group E)
• Spain was our second pick in Group E, and at 94.9%, got more picks than our top teams in Group F (Belgium at 94.3%) and Group H (Uruguay at 89.2%)
• Groups with fairly even pick distributions will be key to watch as it pertains to our overall leaderboard
• To that end, some groups to keep an eye on...
• In Group A, 48% of us picked Senegal and 46% of us picked Ecuador
• In Group C, 65% of us picked Mexico and 35% of us picked Poland
• In Group G, 54% of us picked Switzerland and 32% of us picked Serbia
• Shout-out to our LONE picker on Saudi Arabia in Group C, our 16 pickers on Costa Rica in Group E, our 19 pickers on Tunisia in Group D, and our 27 pickers on Iran in Group B

 

WEEKLY AWARDS

 

Maradona Moxie Award
Boldest pick WITH a comment. You can't win a SZN competition without a little Moxie!

@Sportsfan90 (Survivor: ECU, WAL, POL): "My 3 locks"
Commish says: Now THIS is what boldness looks like in an opening week! One of just THREE people on Wales, and one of just 12 on Poland. Even your "safer" pick, Ecuador, is questionable to survive its group. STANDING OVATION.

 

Commish Communication Award
Our best weekly comment (or three)

@Dufresne (The Pickles Pick'em): "Did I just spend 30 minutes and have 8 different tabs open trying to figure out if I wanna pick Serbia or Switzerland? Damn right I did. Now I have a big mug of Swiss Miss in front of me and I'm ready to take a drink."
Commish says: How many tabs do we need to determine if it's a good idea to mix Swiss Miss with Bud Light Lime? ASKING FOR A FRIEND.

 

"Watch Me Dive" Award
Most convincing comment.

@Skinsfan03 (The Pickles Pick'em): "We all know how in the NFL we have rules for making picks (record matters more than perception, avoid divisional games, drink BLL before making your picks, etc.), but here in soccer-land we have none, so we gotta really break this one down and start making some rules, Starting with group A.
Group A introduces us to our first rule, and a rather strange one: Avoid the home team. In World Cups, home teams are known to lose. Only 6 hosts have ever won it and it hasn’t happened since France in ‘98. With Qatar taken care of and Senegal being injury-ridden it’s Ecuador and the Netherlands surviving group A.
Now, we move to group B for our next rule of world cup picking: Parent countries always win. America I’m sorry but that Island across the pond is still your Daddy. Wales and England make it through from group B.
The next biggest rule comes from group C and that is to always pick the legends. Lewandowski and Messi always have carried and always will, so not picking Poland and Argentina would be a foolish move in this group.
And now group D brings us to the golden rule of all picking: You gotta have a little MOXIE to find success. France is trending down and Austrailians are just British people minus the filter so they’re genetically built to win soccer games. Aussies and Denmark are the Cinderalla story this year.
Following these four rules, Groups E-H fall into place pretty nicely. Spain and Germany are loaded with legends and are perennial favorites. Belgium blows past the colonies in group F with Croatia squeaking past as usual. Brazil is too stacked this year and it’s fairly frightening, meanwhile the Swiss are trending up at Tua Tagovialoa levels, so these two dominate group G. Finally, Suarez and Ronaldo, two legends of the sport, will always make their way out of their groups. This style of picking may be new, but the rules are clear and not too different. Follow my advice and stay safe my children. Now, where’s my BLL??"
Commish says: How many English fans show up to the game in "WHO'S YOUR DADDY?" tshirts? And whatever the number is, it's at least 10,000 too few, right?

 

Insulting Zizou's Sister Award
The spiciest/wildest take.

@Sportzak (The Pickles Pick'em): "Spiciest take: Ronald will score as many goals at the tournament as I do. (I'm not on a World Cup roster.)"
Commish says: OH DAMN THAT'S SOME SPICE

 

MORE COMMENTS

@LeviLeo (Survivor: ECU, CRO, GER): "Idk why, but world cup picking has been the most stressful thing to pick in. Is it because it only comes once every 4 years? Is it because I haven't followed international soccer since last world cup? Is it because I dropped a pickle on the floor and my dog wouldn't eat it? Will we ever have a solar system cup? a Galaxy Cup?! A universe Cup?!? Will I ever own a goat? How many ants could we fit inside the sun? Bottom line is it's stressful and we may never know why. "
Commish says: Eat the pickle, buy the goat, give it 2.5 BLLs, and you'll learn (from the goat) why World Cup is stressful and the answer to all of life's other most intriguing mysteries. Then call me and we'll start a stratospherically successful infomercial business.

 

@Bukjuan (The Pickles Pick'em): "Of course, the U.S. is in the group of death..."
Commish says: I meannnnn this depends on your view of how good the U.S. is. Japan would like some words with you.

 

@suckitspanos (The Pickles Pick'em): "You’ve outdone yourself with the World Cup addition. Does the SZN get any better? No! But I would like humbly put forward a recommendation to name any additional World Cup competitions after one of the greatest moments in World Cup history— The Zindane aka the Strike First Strike Hard No Mercy Headbutt "
Commish says: [Checks "spiciest comment" award name] ... Did you REALLY think we'd leave the Zizou headbutt out of this?!?

 

@Noteldar (The Pickles Pick'em): "USMNT is going to blast through Wales and Iran and might even draw against England, right? Right???"
Commish says: (Furiously nodding head)

 

@Jsaslow (Survivor: DEN, FRA, SWI): "This is a total crapshoot. And I’m going to win."
Commish says: [FURIOUSLY NODDING HEAD]

 

@rkhendren (The Pickles Pick'em): "Messi v Ronaldo Final, calling it now"
Commish says: This would immediately be in the conversation for biggest sporting even in world history. And I'm not exaggerating.

 

@timmyo40 (The Pickles Pick'em): "USA will take a maximum of 2 points."
Commish says: TIMMY R U WELSH

 

@Pattrick11 (The Pickles Pick'em): "I have a better chance of falling back into a thing with my xwife than picking this correctly, and she's a terrible human. "
Commish says: Wait so what happens if you win it all?

 

@mikerosolio (Survivor: NET, ESP, URU): "This round is brought to you by the late injuries to talismanic players. No Heung Min Son? No South Korea. No Sadio Mane? No Senegal. Keylor Navas has LOWER BACK PAIN? No Costa Rica. I like this logic. Looking forward to getting knocked out immediately. "
Commish says: This would have been cruelly poetic had you picked France. This also would have been better as a series of haikus. UP YOUR GAME FOR MATCHDAY 2, MIKE!

 

@kempsoos (Survivor: ECU, ENG, DEN): "I just picked three of the several countries that I know someone from. I think its a viable strategy on account of me being so worldly and eclectic. I gotta beat the potential friends off with a stick. "
Commish says: I checked my email and you've never invited me to Ecuador. You've been on The SZN for at least 7 years. WHAT GIVES, KEMPSOOS

 

@SP_Alexander (The Pickles Pick'em): "Finally The SZN delivering the real FOOTBALL pick'em!!! Although, I won't hold my breathe for a cricket SZN.."
Commish says: I appreciate the enthusiasm, but (gasp), do you doubt us? IPL SZN 2023 COMING IN HOT!

 

@YikesVikes (Survivor: ENG, ARG, FRA): "Why do English people call it Football, If they play it with a soccer ball? Soccer Gods be with me. I'm picking early because I know I won't be watching the world cup but I might get a kick out of this guessing. "
Commish says: You should ask Thierry Henry this question. No, YikesVikes, NO DON'T ACTUALLY ASK HIM STOP!!!

 

@Joliveros1995 (Survivor: ENG, CRO, URU): "Easy"
Commish says: NOT EASY

 

@edudeus (The Pickles Pick'em): "African nations will prove formidable!"
Commish says: GIVE ME ALL THE CONTRARIAN TAKES!

 

@Krobbletini (The Pickles Pick'em): "16 picks but I wish it were 16 licks...cause those men are fiiiiinnnneeeeee"
Commish says: I thought about not featuring this then I THOUGHT AGAIN.

 

@anselmclinard (The Pickles Pick'em): "There must a be a lot new teams in the NFL."
Commish says: THE JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS FINALLY RELOCATED

 

@Camron (The Pickles Pick'em): "what do i get if i lose every pick?"
Commish says: YOUR DIGNITY AND A PICKLE

 

Yours in Golden Boots,
The Commish