Tumblr and Yahoo Sport have predicted the winner of UEFA EURO 2016, with Germany defeating Spain in the final for the championship, according to data analysis.
Yahoo research scientists were tasked with predicting a tournament winner based on a combination of scientific expertise and unique access to data from Yahoo Sport and Tumblr – one of the world’s largest social media platforms.
These research scientists waded through more than 24 million Tumblr blogs, comprising over 20 billion posts from the first five months of this year, to surface all EURO 2016 conversations on the platform. Next, they examined four years of Yahoo Sport data for each team in this year’s tournament. They then developed a statistical model for predicting the winners for each match, which predicts Germany to ultimately lift the trophy.
A victory would mark a golden age for Germany who would join the elite ranks of teams to hold both EURO and World Cup trophies simultaneously. This would put to bed the ghosts of EURO 2008 and the 2010 World Cup, where Spain’s triumphant runs left Germany defeated.
According to Yahoo’s predictions, England will face a familiar foe – Portugal – in the quarter-final stage. Portugal are England’s bogey team, having got the better of them in Euro 2000, Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006, but it looks like England will have revenge this year, with a predicted 2-1 victory in extra time.
A sterling performance is also expected from the Republic of Ireland in this year’s competition. They look set to beat Italy and Belgium to the top of their group, making it into the quarter-finals, despite Belgium being widely regarded as one of the favourites to lift the trophy.
Pre-tournament favourite and home team France is predicted to sail through the first three rounds, but will then face a dominant Germany, who historically seem to find extra gears at the latter stages of the knock-outs.
Check out the full Tumblr blog post for a more in-depth methodology on how our Yahoo research scientists developed their predictions, and stay tuned to Tumblr and Yahoo Sports throughout EURO 2016 for a comprehensive hub of analysis and breaking news.
See below for graphical representations of Yahoo Research’s winners forecast:
