First of all, this may be the strongest England team ever. Fabio Capello has won 74 per cent of his 23 games with England. That's a much better record than any of his predecessors. The team's next best managers - Alf Ramsey, Sven Goran Eriksson, Glenn Hoddle, Ron Greenwood and all those prewar selection committees - only won about 60 per cent. So for once, the standard pre-tournament hysteria in England has some justification.

But we're going to discard emotions and work out what will really happen in South Africa. Stefan Szymanski, a sports economist and co-author of our recent book, Why England Lose, is a man of pure reason. He has crunched numbers and come up with the savviest prediction yet of how England will do. The faint of heart should look away now. Here goes.

Stefan starts by identifying the five factors that predict the success of England or any other national team:

1. Population size - Obviously, bigger countries tend to win more than smaller ones.
2. Income - Less obviously, rich countries tend to win more than poorer ones (Yes, Brazil is the exception).
3. Soccer experience - In Why England Lose, we measure that by the number of internationals a country has played in its history. For instance, England has played more games than the United States, and that experience should help when the two countries meet. We think experience is a mark of a country's football savvy, its knowhow acquired over decades.
4. Intrinsic football quality - Some countries do better than you would expect given their resources of population, income and experience: Brazil, Holland and Serbia are great overperformers. England modestly overperforms its resources: it does quite well for a midsized country (It's just unrealistic of the tabloids to demand that the team win every World Cup). We say these overperforming countries have high intrinsic football quality. Some countries do worse than you'd expect given their resources: the US and, in particular, India are horrible underperformers. We reckon the Americans have historically scored about three-quarters of a goal a game less than they should have, given their vast population and wealth. Underperformers have low intrinsic football quality.
5. Crucial individuals of the moment - If you have a special coach or player, it helps. Argentina with Diego Maradona were clearly better – at least in big games – than Argentina without him. The same seems to go for England with Capello. But the effect of these great individuals can be hard to measure. We're just going to drop this factor into the mix as a sort of extra seasoning.

Normally home advantage is a factor too, but since South Africa aren't going to win the World Cup, that doesn't apply this time.


If you apply these five factors to England's World Cup, this is what you get:

Their opener against the US is their trickiest game of the first round. The US is bigger and richer than England. However, it has less soccer experience, and underperforms. True, the Americans have improved in recent years, but we still expect England to shade this one.

Then come poor Algeria and Slovenia. England overpower both countries not just in population, wealth and experience, but also in intrinsic football quality: England are modest overperformers, Algeria and Slovenia slight underperformers. These two games might actually be the goalfests that English fans always expect and almost never get against minnows. Under Capello, England have outscored their opponents by an average of two goals a game, about a goal better than the typical team of a modern England manager. Expect Wayne Rooney to notch a few at this point.

So, says Stefan, England should end the first round on a high. After three wins out of three, the hubris at home will know no bounds.

Then comes the fall. The overperforming Serbs should win Group D, consigning Germany to second place. England would then meet Germany in the second round. The previews in the British papers before the game would say that now at last England can slay the old dragon. Capello's team torched their group; the Germans, in decline since 1990, without Michael Ballack, only slunk out of theirs.

England will probably score first: in big games in World Cups they get almost all their goals in the first half, after which they typically recreate the retreat from Dunkirk, crowding their own penalty area, banging balls away for an hour, before inevitably conceding. In other words, England at major tournaments perform like a cheap battery.

Meanwhile, Germany are much underestimated. They are about as experienced and rich as England, but have 30 million more inhabitants. They aren't usually particular overperformers, but they rise to the big occasion: they're much, much better in tournaments than in friendly matches, says Stefan. Even since 1990, they have got further than England at every World Cup, and reached three European finals.

Still, England might well hang on for the draw. After all, under Capello they are unprecedentedly strong. Yet when the match goes to penalties, Germany win. The last German who missed a penalty in a shootout in the World Cup was Uli Stielike in 1982.

All that will then remain is the ritual English selection of the national scapegoat. Past holders of the post include Peter Bonetti in 1970, Maradona in 1986, David Beckham in 1998 and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2006. We don't dare predict who'll get it this time. On July 11 those English people still interested in football can scowl at the TV during the Brazil-Serbia final (that's Stefan's prediction) and wonder whether it will happen for England in our lifetimes.

Of course, this is just the most likely scenario. Stefan reckons there's about a ten per cent chance of England actually winning the World Cup. Should that happen, all will be explained in our new book out this autumn, Why England Win.


* Why England Lose: And Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained, by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, is published by HarperSport at £7.99.