Prediction of FIFA results went wrong, AGAIN!

No matter what level of mathematical models you can build, still predicting the result of a sport is extremely difficult, if not impossible. FIFA 2022 started with a lot of predictions, and we are just into the  4th day and 12th match, yet we have watched the two greatest upsets in the FIFA world cup.

The first, I would say it is the greatest upset of all time in which Saudi Arabia won against Messi's Argentina.

At the end of the first half, Argentina was leading 1-0, but in the next half, the oil nation scored two goals quickly. After the Saudi's first goal, the Argentinian giants were in disarray. In the end, most of the analytics said that crowd support for Saudi Arabia was one of the reasons for their surprising win.  

The second match was between Japan and four times world cup winners (1954, 1974, 1990, 2014) Germany. 

Germany was showing their class during the first half and scored the first goal. Germany has never lost a world cup match after 1954 after scoring the first goal. On the other hand, Japan has never won a world cup match after conceding a first goal. Even though statistics were not on their side, Japan won the match against Germany with a score line of 2-1. After the match, the analytics said that most of the Japanese players had played in the German football cup, which gave them an advantage over Germany. 

How can we include crowd support and players' special features into mathematical modeling? I would say it is difficult, which is why sport is such an unpredictable and, thus, fantastic event. We can enjoy sports events only because of their unpredictable nature. If not, sport is not a sport, and let the sport be a sport.