Who FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver is Picking to Win the World Cup

Hint: It's not the U.S.
5:04 | 06/08/14


Coming up next:



Skip to this video now

Now Playing:


More information on this video
Enhanced full screen
Explore related content
Related Extras
Related Videos
Video Transcript
Transcript for Who FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver is Picking to Win the World Cup
There's the U.S. National soccer team getting ready for the world cup, winning a friendly match against Nigeria last night. But what are their chances for 2 biggest prize in the world of sports, the world cup? ABC's Paula Faris went to our experts at fivethirtyeight for some answers. Reporter: Who better at predicting the world's biggest championship tournament, than fivethirtyeight guru Nate silver. You played soccer, but your career ended when? I think in sixth or seventh grade, it was my least worst sport. Reporter: And now, Nate and his team have whipped up their world cup forecast. So it's all based on Numbers? It's all based on Numbers. There's not any subjective component to it. We're trying to account both of the quality of athletes and the performances. Reporter: Nate found everything counts. The farther you travel, the tougher to win. Especially east to west. That might help the other south American teams. It might hurt a team like Japan, coming in from the other side of the world. Reporter: But the big question for American fans, how will the U.S. Do? The last time the team advanced out of the group stage and Nate gives them a 37% chance to do it again. They played pretty well together as a team. Reporter: But the chances the U.S. Wins it all, Nate says, it's just 4%. Well, make it .4%. Words in Jim carry, you're saying there's a chance. There is a chance. Things like this can happen. It's a tough year to be an underdog. Reporter: It's because of teams like these, the heavy hitters, Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Germany. You have four terrific teams that might be favorites in any other year. Reporter: Big drum roll, who are predicting to win the 2014 world cup? It's Brazil's world cup to lose. I feel like anyone who doesn't say Brazil is trying too hard to be contrarian. Reporter: Way to go out on the limb. Yes. This is a year in particular where it's a good year for the favorites. Reporter: All right, Nate, thank you so much. We'll be watching. See you in Rio. Thank you. Nate's full world cup predictions tomorrow on fivethirtyeight.com. Now, let's go back to Rio. Julie foudy, look at the scene there, where the world cup is going to begin later this week. Of course, Julie won the world cup twice for U.S. Women's soccer. Julie, we just heard Nate's hard truth, .4% for team usa. Even the coach said the team can't win. I know, and although, George, they looked good last night, the U.S. Against Nigeria, it's probably pretty realistic. Because all of the big boys are here, as Paula said, the strongest team the U.S. Probably had in a very long time and the deepest team, the biggest challenge for them is of course they're put in this group of death, Ghana their first game knocked them out of the world cup. Portugal has the best player in the world in Cristiano Ronaldo and Germany. They won three world cups. That's their group. That's the big challenge. We're looking at baby steps for the U.S. And how do you handicap the world cup overall? Do you agree with Nate? I actually am going to be a contrarian here, George, and I think Brazil is the obvious choice, of course, being the host here. But I'm going with Argentina, besides having one of the best players in the world, Lionel mess, has a tremendous team as well. They're from south America as well, they have a lot of fans coming. I'm going to go with Argentina to win this world cup, not Brazil, because there's tremendous pressure on Brazil being the host. It looks so beautiful right there right now, but there have been a lot of protests, some security concerns, how is that playing down there? Well, it's interesting, because, Brazil is known for this love of football and this joy and it's in their hearts and their souls, but there's this undercurrent, when you walk around, I was out yesterday, there's this undercurrent of concern about how much money was spent on this world cup. Surprisingly, everybody thought that the anti-government protests, what's more disruptive are the strikes. In a city of 30 million people they're having a transit strike in its fourth day, and that's become a real concern, they're seeing this sadness, the money being spent. So, when you look at it, how this Brazil team does, is going to be really a test of the attitude of this country and how they approach this world cup. Julie, thank you very much. You can watch the world cup action all day long on ESPN, the coverage begins on Thursday .


{"id":24047342,"title":"Who FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver is Picking to Win the World Cup","duration":"5:04","description":"Hint: It's not the U.S.","section":"ThisWeek","mediaType":"Default"}