Upsets

The18’s renowned data scientist introduced the team to an API (application programming interface) that gave predictions for games in the European Championship. We naturally took that as a challenge to see if we could predict the outcomes of games better than the algorithm. We’ll show the results from the Round of 16 before sharing our Euro 2020 quarterfinal predictions.

Five of our staff, including Grant the data scientist, took the challenge to outsmart the algorithm. After eight games in the Round of 16, this is what the leaderboard looks like.

The Round of 16 duel between Sweden and Ukraine finished with the underdogs Ukraine claiming a 2-1 victory. A disturbing Artem Besyedin injury in extra time put a major damper on the mood.

Swedish defender Marcus Danielson was rightfully shown a red card after VAR review for an extremely high and dangerous tackle on Besyedin.

I said that Spain and Croatia had the greatest game in the tournament so far. I retract that statement.

France and Switzerland battled late into the Bucharest night to tie 3-3 and Switzerland won on penalties 5-4. The massive upset has some critics looking at Kylian Mbappe.

In the immediate aftermath of Christian Eriksen’s collapse after suffering cardiac arrest in Denmark’s Euro 2020 opener against Finland, Danish captain Simon Kjær earned admiration around the globe for his actions.

With a 1-0 victory over Ukraine at the National Arena in Bucharest, Romania on Monday, Austria punched its ticket to the Euro 2020 Round of 16 as Group C runner-up, meaning that they’ll play Italy on Saturday at Wembley Stadium in London.

Ukraine finishes third in the group, so they now face a nervous wait to see if they sneak into the knockout rounds as one of the four best third-place teams. History says they won’t, as three points and a goal difference of —1 wouldn’t have been enough at Euro 2016.