World Cup 2022 produced incredible football. At the start of the tournament, Al Jazeera introduced Kashef, our artificial intelligence (AI) robot, to crunch the numbers and predict the results of each game. After every day of action, Kashef downloaded the day's data and compared it with more than 200 metrics, including the number of wins, goals scored and FIFA rankings, from matches played over the past century, totalling more than 100,000 records, to see who was most likely to win the following day. The group stages from November 20 to December 2 were not very kind to Kashef, who erred on the side of caution and failed to foresee any of the many major upsets. The good news for us sentient beings is that every time Kashef got it wrong, we were treated to a feast of World Cup magic, including Saudi Arabia's stunning 2-1 victory over Argentina, Morocco's 2-0 defeat of Belgium and Tunisia's 1-0 win over 2018 champions France.

World Cup 2022 has produced some incredible football and shocks. The group stages provided endless high-octane thrillers, all laced with an air of unpredictability. With 14 goals scored in the first four knockout matches, this tournament has continued to deliver. But behind the captivating lure of this footballing spectacle, there has been an existential battle taking place at the Al Jazeera offices. The question: Who can predict a football game better?

Just three days before England kick off their FIFA World Cup campaign against Iran, scientists have a rather pessimistic forecast. The experts, based at London's Alan Turing Institute, say Gareth Southgate's men have only a seven per cent chance of winning the World Cup for the first time since 1966. However, out of the 32 participating teams, England is the fifth mostly likely team to bring home the trophy, just behind the likes of France, Belgium and Brazil. Meanwhile, Wales, which is playing in its first World Cup since 1958, has only a 0.5 per cent chance of winning the tournament – and only a 46 per cent chance of making it out of the group stage. Brazil is most likely to win the World Cup this year, according to the team's research.

Performance indicators that contributed to success at the group stage and play-off stages of the 2019 Rugby World Cup were analysed using publicly available data obtained from the official tournament website using both a non-parametric statistical technique, Wilcoxon's signed rank test, and a decision rules technique from machine learning called RIPPER. Our statistical results found that ball carry effectiveness (percentage of ball carries that penetrated the opposition gain-line) and total metres gained (kick metres plus carry metres) were found to contribute to success at both stages of the tournament and that indicators that contributed to success during the group stages (dominating possession, making more ball carries, making more passes, winning more rucks, and making less tackles) did not contribute to success at the play-off stage. Our results using RIPPER found that low ball carries and a low lineout success percentage jointly contributed to losing at the group stage, while winning a low number of rucks and carrying over the gain-line a sufficient number of times contributed to winning at the play-off stage of the tournament. The results emphasise the need for teams to adapt their playing strategies from the group stage to the play-off stage at tournament in order to be successful.

When it comes to sports betting, most people lose. But during the 2014 World Cup, a team of statisticians beat the bookmakers. They correctly predicted Germany -- their home country and 6-to-1 underdogs -- as the final champions and raked in a 30 percent return with bets placed on regular matches. This year, the team, led by Andreas Groll of Germany's Technical University of Dortmund, is back with an artificial intelligence program with even better odds. As of Friday morning, it had correctly predicted 15 of 24 games -- the winners, the losers and those who tied. As for the ultimate victor, their new model has picked Spain, but only if Germany falters before the final.

With the kickoff of the 2018 FIFA World Cup fast approaching, every soccer fan in the world is dying to know: Who will capture the coveted trophy? If you're not just a soccer fan but also a techie, I guess you have realized that Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are presently buzzwords too. Let us combine these two to predict which country will win the FIFA World Cup. Disclaimer: This should in no way be used for betting or any financial decision. Should you choose to, who am I to stop you.(just