Three Lions set to limp home from Brazil says PwC
WE all know that the Three Lions will need a footballing miracle if Roy Hodson’s England are to win the World Cup, but economists at PwC have forecast an almighty struggle for the national team to even get out of the group stages.
PwC ranked all the teams appearing at the World Cup in Brazil according to the ability of its players, the track record in the competition, players form and footballing tradition, and tips hosts Brazil to win it.
England meanwhile, with a young squad, playing in the unfamiliar heat of South America, and facing a tough group of g Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica, could be on an early plane home.
PwC World Cup Index – an assessment of each country’s relative prospects – suggests that while on the face of it, the quarter-finals should be attainable for England, who rank eighth according to the PwC index, they are in for a fight to progress from the group stages given the slightly superior strength of their rivals, Italy and Uruguay.
PwC believes Germany, Argentina and Spain will push the favourite, Brazil, hard.
John Hawksworth, UK chief economist at PwC, said: “Group D has the highest total combined score on our index and is therefore deemed to be the ‘Group of Death’.
“This reflects the strong collective footballing tradition of Uruguay, England and Italy – three countries in the top 10 of the all-time World Cup table that between them have won seven of the previous 19 World Cups. It will be tough for England to qualify from this group but, if they do, they should have a decent chance to at least reach the quarter finals.”
In the Olympic Games a strong link has been established between medal totals and the size of the economy, but there is no such connection with the World Cup, the firm says.
Mr Hawksworth added: ““In the Olympics, our previous analysis showed that money can buy you success. But in the World Cup, we found little evidence of any such effect as middle income countries such as Brazil and Argentina can do at least as well as richer European nations like Germany, France and the UK.
“Footballing tradition is more important than GDP in driving World Cup success: in that sense, the beautiful game is a great leveller.”
England’s reputation among some as perennial underachievers is also justified to some degree by the fact that they have collected 26 fewer World Cup points than estimated by PwC’s model. The title of leading underachievers is in fact the US.
