World Cup 2018: Does form matter for teams competing in Russia?

England fans know the drill all too well - the national team heads into a major international football tournament having qualified with a near-perfect record. Hopes are high, but then… well, you know what happens - lacklustre performances or penalty shoot-out heartbreak, followed by an early flight home. So what really determines the success or failure of a team going into a major international football tournament like the World Cup? Is it a side's quality (class) or its recent performances (form)? Reality Check has teamed up with the BBC's statistics department to try to answer one of the biggest debates in football - how much does form matter? To do this, we built a computer program that predicts football results by analysing ratings data.