Suarez Suspension Cuts Uruguay’s World Cup Chances in Half

After the biting incident that was roundly criticized and publicly scorned, FIFA suspended Luis Suarez for the remainder of the 2014 World Cup. More than that, they punished the Uruguayan forward for 9 international matches and excommunicated the Liverpool striker from football for four months.

Without getting too deep into whether the punishment was too strong or strong enough, AccuScore used its computer to determine the impact of Suarez’s injury on Uruguay’s chances of advancing in the 2014 World Cup.

After narrowly qualifying ahead of Italy, Uruguay drew a strong Colombian team in the round of 16.

With or without Suarez, Uruguay would be considered the underdog against Columbia, but using AccuScore’s simulation engine, we can determine the value of Suarez, i.e. his impact.

In order to get an accurate reading, we limited the simulation on only 22 starters—11 for Uruguay and 11 for Colombia. In one scenario, we started Suarrez alongside Edinson Cavani. In the other scenario, Diego Forlan substituted Suarez’s spot, but all other 21 played in the simulated environment remained constant.

AccuScore’s computer ran each set of simulations 10,000 times to determine the impact of Suarez’s suspension on Uruguay’s chances of advancing, and the results were as dramatic as Suarez’s bite.

With Suarez in the lineup, Uruguay averaged 1.18 goals per game and had a 35.8% chance of advancing past Colombia. Sure, Colombia held a decisive edge, but Suarez was level with Colombia’s James Rodriguez as the most likely player to score at 44%. The team averaged nearly 10 shots per game with between three and four hitting the target.

Without Suarez, Uruguay’s chance of qualifying were cut in half.

With an aging Forlan starting, Uruguay’s average goals per game were cut by nearly a half at 0.68 goals per game. Uruguay’s chances of advancing dropped to 18.6%, and Cavani became the most likely Uruguayan to find the target. However, Cavani only had a 20.2% chance of scoring.

Remarkably, Suarez’s inclusion in the lineup also helped Cavani stay on point. With Suarez, Cavani was 22.7% likely to find the back of the net. Without Suarez, Uruguay’s second most likely scorer was Forlan at 12.8%.

Perhaps the easiest way to explain the impact of Suarez’s absence is by analyzing Uruguay’s probability of progressing to the quarterfinals. Uruguay went from 35.8% to progress to 18.6% to progress. Suarez’s bite cut Uruguay’s chances by nearly 50%!



AccuScore has expert picks for every match in the 2014 World Cup, and each pick is star-rated based on the computer’s advanced trend analysis: 2014 World Cup Picks