Nate Silver's model: France and Argentina favourites — and Brazil underrated
The American stats guru debuted PELE this World Cup. It has France and Argentina on top — and the hexa worth more than the market pays.
PELE, the football model that American statistician Nate Silver — famous for FiveThirtyEight's election forecasts — debuted this World Cup at Silver Bulletin, has two messages for the tournament. The first: Argentina and France are the favourites, at 26% and 24% title chances in the latest published table, well clear of Spain (16%). The second matters more to Brazilian fans: the same model indicates the market is charging too little for a sixth title.
By PELE's math, powered by 100,000 simulations, Brazil has a 10% chance of the title — the tournament's fourth force, clearly ahead of England, at 6%.
The market disagrees. On Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market — nearly $3.8 billion traded on the winner market alone — the hexa was trading on Friday night at 7%: fifth place, behind even England. Three percentage points separate Silver's model from the market price — and on England, the two flip the order entirely.
The Golmetria model sides with Silver. Our Friday update gives Brazil 8% — also the fourth-highest probability, behind Spain (23%), Argentina (19%) and France (12%), and also ahead of the English. Two independent models, built on different methodologies, arriving at the same read: the Seleção is worth more than the market is paying.
Nor is it an isolated quirk. Independent analysts comparing this World Cup's major forecasts had already noticed that PELE grades South American sides more generously than rival systems. And the ruler measures both ways: on France, it is the market (33%) that sits far above both PELE (24%) and Golmetria (12%).
The disagreement over Brazil has a short deadline. On Sunday, against Haaland's Norway in the Round of 16, PELE gives the Seleção a 63% chance of advancing — almost exactly Golmetria's number too. If Brazil goes through, the models' 8-to-10% ages better than the market's 7%. If they fall, the market was charging the right price.
Analysis, not a guarantee — in a one-off match, no probability decides anything.