Hello welcome to the first of my blogs looking at each group in the world cup. Over the next 8 blogs I hope to dissect each country’s squad and finally look at their chances of progressing and winning the cup. So today we start with group A which contains hosts Russia, Uruguay, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The first thing to look at is the age range of each squad in group A. All 4 teams have a median around the same area. As you can see Egypt have a 45 year old player, one of their GK’s who is the oldest player in any squad in the tournament. Uruguay and Egypt tend to have some younger players than Russia and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia look to have generally one of the older squads in the tournament.

Next we look at the caps all the players in the squad have received. It’s clear Russia has the most players with the least amount of international experience. Will they struggle to cope with pressure from playing in front of home crowd. Saudi Arabia despite having the older squad of the 4 teams seems to have generally the least experienced team. Uruguay however seem to have a good balance with experience at all different levels.

Looking at each teams squad composition clearly all have the same percent GK as 3 GK is stipulated in the rules. One thing that’s clear is Egypt, Russia and Saudi Arabia have a low amount of strikers within there squads. All three have just 3 recognised strikers will this leave all them struggling to score goals. Also Egypt seem to have the lowest amount of midfielders compared to the rest of the group with an increase in defenders. This will give egypt lots of options in defence in case of injuries however could leave them exposed if they need to make changes from the bench to try and win games.

  Finally we use the implied probability from the betting odds to look at the chance of each team getting out the group and winning the tournament. Overall group A seems to have no teams really capable of mounting a serious challenge for the world cup. With Russia with home advantage rated lower then Uruguay. Also it doesn’t seem to be a particularly close group for qualification the clear favourites are Uruguay and Russia. The wild card in this is Egypt if Mo Salah is fit for the tournament then expect there chances compared to Russia to increase considerably. If he isn’t expect this could be a pretty straight forward group.

Thats it for today’s look at group A please let me know your thoughts do you think any teams in this group can go far? let me know your thoughts in the comments. Group B will follow tomorrow.