Most Likely EURO 2012 Final: Spain vs. Germany

Spain will win the UEFA European Football Championship with a probability of 25.8 per cent, defeating Germany in the final. This is the forecast made by a team of scientists headed by Achim Zeileis of the University of Innsbruck. By applying a statistical model based on bookmaker odds, they also correctly predicted the EURO 2008 finalists and Spain as the 2010 FIFA World Champion. From the official FIFA rating to astrological forecasts, in the run-up to the kickoff of EURO 2012 there are many predictions about who will win the European Football Championship. One statistical model seems to be more reliable when it comes to forecasting results: the bookmaker consensus model developed by Achim Zeileis, Professor of Statistics at the University of Innsbruck and his colleagues from the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna). They have applied this model again in their most recent study on the UEFA EURO 2012. The scientists obtained long-term winning odds from 23 online bookmakers, which in combination with complex statistical models were used for a simulation of all possible courses of the tournament and results.