The group stages of Euro 2024 are over. And, as promised, the update to our Euro 2024 prediction model has arrived.
I’m young enough to have enjoyed a period of remarkable optimism surrounding the England football team. Memories of the disappointment of our Euro 2016 exit against Iceland had been firmly eclipsed by the fervour of 2018, 2021 and 2022. Up until the last 3 weeks, where the England football team collectively decided to abandon ambitions of winning an international tournament in favour of raising the nations average blood pressure as steeply as possible.
But, my word, at 7pm on Sunday evening, was it all worth it.
We haven’t quite developed LeadScorer (our pipeline prediction tool) to the point of being able to predict 95th minute bicycle kick winners. Yet.
But, we have got a data-led prediction for how things are going to pan out from here, so if you would like to know if there is more frustration ahead for England fans, or if that magical moment could be the start of something special, read on.
If you would like to see how leadscorer predicted the outcome of Euro 2024 before the group stages had commenced, you can check it out here.
RECAP - How have we done it?
At Coppett Hill, we’ve developed a tool called LeadScorer, which takes a series of prospect attributes and behaviours, and predicts their relative likelihood to purchase. This can then be deployed to prioritise customer outreach and get a feel for overall pipeline value.
Essentially, we took our LeadScorer tool, repurposed it to use the result of every international football match since 2016 and accompanying team attributes as training data, then generated an expected result for each possible fixture, and consequent tournament progression.
Since the conclusion of the group stages, we’ve included results from the past 3 weeks in our training data, and, as much as it pains me as an England supporter, introduced a recency bias to simulate form/momentum heading into the knockout stages.
As before, I’ve taken the liberty of furnishing this article with a series of AI generated images. Also, as before, please do not take this article as any form of gambling advice.
Obviously.
The group stage – was our model any good?
Given that LeadScorer was developed for a very different purpose, we were pleasantly surprised with the accuracy of our model.
England were predicted to beat Serbia by a single goal, before drawing 1-1 against Denmark and squeezing past Slovenia by two goals to one. Scotland were predicted to suffer defeat against Germany before securing hard-fought draws in their remaining fixtures – this almost came to fruition, if not for a 90 + 10’ goal for Hungary in their final game. Not bad.
I’ve made the executive decision that only the results of groups A, B and C are relevant when assessing the accuracy of our model so far – I’ll be taking no further questions on this matter.
So, what happens next?
As we all know, England are drawn against Slovakia in the round of 16. And, as we all know now, Bellingham steps up to the plate after 95 minutes to deliver one of the all-time great England moments, with the score eventually finishing at 2-1. Funnily enough, the model knew this too. I’ve included a snip of the SQL output to maintain a level of credibility here.
Elsewhere, admittedly, we didn’t have Switzerland brushing Italy aside to make it through to the quarter finals. In the interest of keeping this as relevant as possible, we are going to manipulate the output a little to see England meet Switzerland in the quarter finals, as will be the case this Saturday coming.
The quarter-finals
Crunch time. An underwhelming England take on an exciting Switzerland side, buoyed with the confidence of knocking out holders Italy in the round of 16. Gareth Southgate’s men know that the level of performance simply has to improve, or they will be faced with another quarter final exit.
And maybe, just maybe, the drama of the last 16 awakens something in the England squad, as Jude Bellingham once again sends England into ecstasy by delivering when it matters most. Final score: 2-1.
Elsewhere, the Portuguese knock out France, and the Netherlands see off dark horses Austria.
Here is the image of Jude Bellingham being England's saviour, securing a 2-1 victory in the quarter-finals of Euro 2024.
The semi-finals
The Netherlands have struggled with expectations at this tournament, and England have steadily built momentum. However, as any football fan knows, a victory against a nation with such a level of football heritage can never be taken as a given.
And yet, the frustration of the group stages disappears further into the rear-view mirror, as England produce their most assured performance yet to book their place in the final with a 2-1 win. Liquid football.
Elsewhere, as in our previous set of results, Spain eliminate Portugal in the other semi-final.
Here is the image capturing the excitement and expectation building in the nation after England defeats the Netherlands in a game of liquid football.
The final
England succeed in banishing their early tournament woes to meet a Spain side who have impressed from start to finish. In our previous set of results, England fell at the final hurdle to lose on penalties – can we go one step further this time?
No – this time around we just lose within 90 minutes.
Sorry. Again.
Here is the image of Jack Johnson, reflecting on the machine learning model he created predicting England's loss against Spain in the Euros final, with a subtle mix of disappointment and satisfaction that the recency bias introduced to the model has had the expected effect.
We like to hope that this prediction will prove to be wrong – we think the model behind LeadScorer is significantly better at predicting a likelihood of a prospect to purchase than football results.
If you are interested in how we can use LeadScorer and our other tools to help your business, please Contact Us.