Of course, taking the entire set of games into account, there's likely to be some games with higher scores, but when you consider each game individually, as this web site does, the likely result will not have many goals.

Personally I love the mathematical complexities involved in trying to come up with odds/chances for events. It's applied maths with the potential for monetary reward :)

This would be my prediction if the WC was a long series of randomly defined games. The specific games calendar has effects, though.

My own model goes from the Elo ratings at http://eloratings.net (with Elo, a pair of scores gives you an expected result) and simulates 10^7 World Cups, updating scores for each simulation as it goes and so on.

There aren't any clear favorites, although of course there's an elite group (IIRC 5 or 6 teams together have 25% of likelihood of being champions) and Germany is slightly ahead. But in the modal scenario Brazil is eliminated by Spain in the eighth-finals.

Not even that: England has a 35% chance of winning their match against Italy, which only has 33%. Overall stats in the competition are twice as good for Italy, as you can see at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-25233859

As last time France hosted the world cup they won, yet they were not the best team in the tournament.

The prominent most likely score is a bit confusing, if you click through to the match detail then the histogram shows a range of goal differences. So for the first match we predict a goal difference of >2 to Brazil, although the highest probability for an actual score result is 2-0 (16%). Our model makes projections for up to 8-0 in both directions, but we aggregate them for display in this interactive.

On a side note, personally, I think England will surprise everyone by making it to the finals.

I wish I could also share the optimism about England. If we do get out of the group stages we may have to play Brazil or Spain in the quarter finals.

We're fielding a slow team, with several veterans who are at a speed disadvantage (I wish Lugano would retire), and a midfield more suited for counterattacking than for ball dominance. Our strikers, if fit, are the best duo in the tournament though :) .

I think Costa Rica will be the kingmaker, whomever falters against Costa Rica is out.

Odds to reach the quarter finals are roughly 7/4 or about 36%.

If you're driving down the street, do you think you're more likely to see an ordered license plate (123456) or an unordered license plate (163542)? Obviously unordered plates are more common. But if I ask: are you more likely to see the specific plate 123456 or the specific plate 163542, they are equally likely (even though the second plate has more 'apparent' randomness).

It doesn't mean a lesser team can't win or a bigger team not loosing all their group games (as France did one time)

Clicking on this match and then on the advanced analysis link, shows that their match forecast is:

41.6% Korea 29.0% Draw 29.4% Algeria

So you would think that they would assume a win for Korea. But what seems to be happening is that instead, they are using their most likely correct score to determine the match winner. For this match, their most likely score is 1-1 (13.0% chance)

That seems a pretty flawed way to pick the most likely winner...

For example, take a look at group C. Japan has three most likely scores of 1-1, whereas Greece has two 1-1s and a 0-1, yet Greece is expected to advance. It seems clear they're using the win probabilities, not the most likely scores, to determine who advances.

The top-level 'front page' of the table seems to have a colour code of blue for match winners. But in the group H KOR:ALG game, both teams are coloured white. Yet, their percentage chances indicate that Korea is the most likely winner of this match.

Though the 'who advances' bit does seem to be properly calculated from their win chances, as you say.