EURO 2008 INFO

The football team of the Czech Republic will be sacred European Championship on June 29 in Vienna, after beating Italy in the final. That's what economists foresee the major Swiss bank UBS.

The economists rely on the model that enabled them to acquire two years ago, to predict the victory of Italy World Cup. They agreed that Switzerland will go until the semi-finals, while France will not survive the first round ...

Economists UBS Wealth Management Research, who published their prognosis Wednesday, have developed a model that takes into account a number of parameters, including the route of the teams in previous Euro football. It also takes into account the Elo rating, developed by the Hungarian-American physicist Arpad Elo to classify chess players. It is increasingly being used for other sports, particularly in football where he has proved to be "a means to compare and rank the teams above methodology FIFA."

In short, Elo methodology does not take into account only the results of a team, but also the context in which they were acquired.

Thus, according to the model used by economists UBS, the teams that should pass the first round of the Eurofoot are Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Croatia, Germany, Spain and Greece. In the 2nd round, Switzerland should eliminate Germany and then lose in the semi-final against the Czech Republic which has previously eliminated Croatia. The other semi-final saw Italy beat the Netherlands after having eliminated Greece in the previous round.

Therefore, the final oppose Italy to the Czech Republic. According to a forecast "very bold", the model might suggest a tie and a place-kick to the two teams. This has happened in 1976 when Czechoslovakia had prevailed against Germany, the world champion title.

"Would not it be nice and a new page in the long history and legend of football if, once again, the Czechs beat a world champion in the finals of the European Championships?," Write the economists Swiss bank first.