In early November, well before kick-off for the first game of the controversial FIFA World Cup in Qatar, EA and FIFA 23 AI predicted that Argentina would win the competition (at the time we talked about it here). This is the fourth consecutive edition of the World Cup in which the artificial intelligence behind the EA video game correctly guesses the winner of the competition.
The victory of the Albiceleste led by Leo Messi it came at the end of an exciting match full of upsets in front. A race that had to go through the ruthless penalty shootout lottery to find a winner. In short, a World Cup that was undecided until the 120th minute, but which in the eyes of the EA algorithm was clear from the start: “vince l’Argentina”the AI said in November.
EA predicts the winner of the World Cup for the fourth time in a row
Using in-depth assessments of the players and tactics of the various teams, last November FIFA 23 had simulated all 64 matches of the 2022 World Cup. The video game, starting from the group stage and passing through the knockout matches, had predicted that Argentina would have won the final.
The AI had also predicted that Messi would be awarded as the player of the tournament and top scorer in the competition. The first prediction also actually came true, while the Golden Boot for most goals went to Kylian Mbappe, who overtook “La Pulce” with a goal difference. Not only that: according to the game, winning the World Cup will earn Messi the Ballon d’Or. We’ll see.
What’s more disturbing is that the EA Sports simulation had already correctly predicted the winners of past World Cup editions. Previous FIFA titles had indeed simulated that the 2010, 2014 and 2018 World Cups would go to Spain, Germany and France respectively. Predictions that then came true in reality.
Wrong predictions instead those of Airrsenalthe Artificial Intelligence of the Alan Turing Institute in London, who predicted that Brazil would win.