On May 28, 17 days before the start of the World Cup in Russia, EA Sports, the company that develops FIFA games, held a simulation of the World Cup to forecast the development of the tournament.
Using the FIFA 18 game and the ratings of the latest game update, they simulated from the group stage to the final at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow. The result was very good: they scored 13 of the 16 classified to the round of 16, the title of the French team and the exact path of Les Bleus from the second round to the semifinal.
On the side of the champion team, EA Sports was successful against Argentina in the round of 16, Uruguay in the quarterfinals and Belgium in the Semifinals. He also predicted the cross between Uruguay and Portugal in the round of 16 and the Belgian victory against Brazil. Where were the errors? In the elimination in the second round of Sweden against Brazil (the Swedes qualified first in their group, going to the other side of the table) and in the participation in that key of Poland, which was finally eliminated in the group stage and its place was occupied for Japan.
On the other side, more errors were detected. Of the four crosses of the second round that appear to the right of the table, only one did not happen: the one of Germany against Costa Rica, since both teams went in the round of 16. And there were also errors in the results: while EA Sports predicted victories of Spain over Russia and Colombia over England in FIFA 18, the losers of video games were the winners of real life.
In this way, while on one side of the draw there was 100% success in the quarterfinal duels, on the other side only the Croatian classification was successful. And the Croats were eliminated in the quarterfinals in the virtual world, although in Russia they finished qualifying to the final.