Title:Global financial majors get busy with football predictions

The FIFA World Cup 2018 kick-off is just hours away and the predictions arena is hotting up further.

国际足联2018年世界杯开球还有仅几个小时的时间，预测竞技场进一步升温。

Latest to join the bandwagon is global financial major Goldman Sachs who, on most days of the year analyses financial markets and macroeconomic models, but has now used the data and tools at its disposal to predict the winner for this year.

最近加入这一潮流的是全球金融巨头高盛(Goldman Sachs)，该公司在今年大部分时间分析了金融市场和宏观经济模式，但如今已利用其掌握的数据和工具预测了今年的赢家。

According to Goldman Sachs, Brazil is expected to win a record sixth World Cup football title defeating Germany in the final and while France has a higher probability than Germany of winning the title, it's bad luck in terms of the draw will make it clash with Brazil in the semi-finals and so it won't make it to the final.

据高盛称，巴西队有望在决赛中赢得创纪录的第六次世界杯足球赛冠军。而法国队比德国队赢得冠军头衔的可能性更高，但在平局方面运气不好会使其与巴西队发生冲突在半决赛中，所以它不会进入决赛。

In a 49-page detailed report, the leading global investment banking firm has used data analytics and artificial intelligence to analyse team level trends and individual player characteristics to create models and simulations before making its predictions.

在一份49页的详细报告中，领先的全球投资银行公司利用数据分析和人工智能分析团队一级的趋势和个人玩家特性，在作出预测之前建立模型和模拟。

"The core of the publication is the forecasting model... After hours of number crunching, 200,000 probability trees, and 1 million simulations, some of the results are strikingly intuitive,"  stated the report that was released on Monday.

周一发布的报告称：“该出版物的核心是预测模型……在几个小时的拐弯之后，有20万棵概率树和100万次模拟，其中一些结果是非常直观的。”

"England meets Germany in the quarters, where Germany wins; and Germany meets Brazil in the final, and Brazil prevails. While Germany is more likely to get to the final, France has a marginally higher overall chance of winning the tournament, and along with Brazil, Germany, and France, Portugal squeaks into the semis, ahead of Argentina,"  it added.

"英格兰在德国获胜的区区与德国相遇；德国在最终与巴西相遇，巴西则获胜。尽管德国更有可能进入决赛，但法国总体上获胜的机会微乎其微，而且与巴西、德国和法国一样，葡萄牙比阿根廷领先，也进入半决赛，"它还补充说。

Goldman Sachs is not the only prominent financial investment firm that is interested in football predictions. Last month, UBS presented its own set of analysis and predictions when it said that Germany is the top contender for lifting the trophy, though Brazil and Spain also has a good chance of winning.

高盛并非唯一一家对足球预测感兴趣的著名金融投资公司。上个月，瑞银提出了自己的一系列分析和预测，当时它表示，德国是举起奖杯的首要竞争者，尽管巴西和西班牙也有获胜的机会。

"According to our simulations, Germany, Brazil, and Spain have the highest likelihood to win the tournament... but watch England, France, Belgium, and Argentina for surprises,"  said the UBS report.

瑞银(UBS)的报告说：“根据我们的模拟，德国、巴西和西班牙最有可能赢得锦标赛……但看看英国、法国、比利时和阿根廷，惊讶不已。

"Host nation Russia will start in the Cup's weakest group and is expected to progress to the round of 16, where it is likely to lose against Spain or Portugal,"  it added.

“东道国俄罗斯将从杯中最弱的群体中开始，预计会在第16轮比赛中继续领先，西班牙和葡萄牙可能会输掉这场比赛，”俄罗斯补充道。

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs predicts that Spain and Argentina are expected to underperform, losing to France and Portugal in the quarter finals, respectively. Interestingly, just like stock picks Japanese major Nomura has categorised its top picks for the global sporting event in three categories. So, while France, Brazil and Spain are 'safe havens', Poland, Uruguay and Denmark are the 'low beta' ones. Peru and Senegal have been classified as 'high beta' teams.

与此同时，高盛(Goldman Sachs)预测，西班牙和阿根廷的业绩预期会较差，在决赛中分别输给了法国和葡萄牙。有趣的是，就像日本主要野村选购股票一样，在全球体育赛事中排行榜首位，因此，法国、巴西和西班牙是“安全避风港”，波兰、乌拉圭和丹麦是“低位贝塔型”。秘鲁和塞内加尔被归类为“高水平乙型”球队。

According to Nomura, the safe havens have the greatest chance of winning while the low beta ones have the greatest potential to become the 'dark horse' in the tournament. The high betas have only a limited chance of getting through the group stage but Nomura does not rule out a surprise to the upside. The predictions may well be for football and not for the financial markets but come with their usual share of hedging.

据野村说，这些避险胜地最有可能获胜，而低位beta运动员最有可能成为锦标赛中的“黑马”。那些高倍晋级的机会有限，但野村并不排除好转的不足现象，很可能是足球的预期不是金融市场的预测，而是他们通常的套期保值。

"It is difficult to assess how much faith one should have in these predictions,"  says the Goldman Sachs report.

高盛(Goldman Sachs)的报告说：“很难评估人们对这些预测的信心。

"... the forecasts remain highly uncertain, even with the fanciest statistical techniques, simply because football is quite an unpredictable game. This is, of course, precisely why the World Cup will be so exciting to watch,"  it adds.

"...即使用最奇特的统计技术来预测，预测仍然高度不确定，这仅仅是因为足球是一项无法预测的游戏，当然，这正是为什么世界杯如此激动人心，" 它补充道。