@incollection{MIP-1901,
author={Lorenz A. Gilch},
title={{2019 Continental Football Championship Forecasts via Nested Poisson Regression}},
institution={{Fakult{\¨a}t f{\¨u}r Informatik und Mathematik, Universit{\¨a}t Passau}},
year={2019},
number={MIP-1901}
}
This article is devoted to the forecast of the 2019 continental football championships in Africa and in the Americas, namely the Africa Cup of Nations, the Gold Cup and the Copa America. We present the simulation results for the three tournaments, where these simulations are based on a Poisson regression model that includes the Elo points of the participating teams as covariates and incorporates differences of
team-specific skills. The proposed model allows predictions in terms of probabilities in order to quantify the chances for each team to reach a certain stage of the tournament. Monte Carlo simulations are used to estimate the outcome of each single match of the tournaments and hence to simulate the whole tournament itself. The model is fitted on all football games on neutral ground of the participating teams since 2010.
