Graphic: the Capello effect

Let me brutally summarise the national narrative about the England football team.

We have some of the best players in the world so we should have one of the best teams in the world. But somehow we don’t. That’s why we always do poorly in the World Cup. It is probably the manager who was to blame, so it’s good we’ve now got Fabio Capello. The other possible suspect is the Premier League, allowing all those foreign players to use up places on the pitch. It’s time for British jobs for British players.

How much of this is true? Dr Henry Stott, Dr Ian Graham and Dr Mark Latham have been running the Fink Tank slide-rule over England.

The national narrative that we should have one of the best national teams in the world and we don’t is wrong in two ways. First, there is no reason why we should have one of the best national sides in the world. The quality of a national side is positively correlated to population and GDP. England’s national team outperform expectations.

The second problem with the national narrative is that the England team are very good. Until recently they have been fifth or sixth in the Fink Tank international ranking. And this, of course, would lead elimination in the quarter-finals to be the expected outcome in the World Cup.

Now, the situation is better. England rank fourth. This is behind Spain, Brazil and Holland but ahead of Italy, Argentina and Germany. So Capello has improved England’s position — that bit of the narrative is correct.

Naturally, that England are very good puts a bit of a dent in the idea that foreign Premier League players are to blame for making England very bad. It is worth adding that even with the naked eye, and no computer model, it can be noted that there is no correlation between the number of foreign players in the English league and England’s World Cup performance.

Here is how things stand in advance of England’s games this week. England should beat Kazakhstan. There is an 86 per cent chance of that happening, with a 10 per cent chance of a draw. The statistics the model produces for the match against Andorra on Wednesday are ones that I have never seen before. Victory appears virtually certain. There is a more than 99 per cent chance of an England win with a less than 0.5 per cent probability that there will even be a draw.

Even if the game against Kazakhstan goes wrong there isn’t much need for England fans to fear. The chance of being in the World Cup finals next year is 99 per cent. One of the most interesting games in this next tranche will take place in Albania, and that’s not a sentence one finds oneself typing too often.

Portugal are playing today and they have only a 20 per cent chance of reaching the finals. They have a 55 per cent chance of beating Albania and if they fail to take all the points they could be on their way out.

One of the most exciting Fink Tank projects at the moment is our work with Castrol, the World Cup sponsor. We’ve been devising, with its backing, the most advanced player ranking system there has been in international football. You can see the full results on castrolfootball.com.

The index uses data from cameras at international games that feed into our computer model. Every move is assessed to measure the difference it makes to goals scored and conceded. It is early days, but at the moment Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard head the England rankings.