According to the Wall Street Journal, since 1990, the color that produces the most winners at the world cup is blue. Blue narrowly beat out Yellow (56%, 55.9%), with Red in third (49%), White in fourth (45.3%) and Green in last (42.4%). Consider the champions of those world cups, the statistics make sense:
- 1990, Germany won wearing white,
- 1994, Brazil won wearing yellow (although their flag is predominantly green),
- 1998, France won wearing blue,
- 2002, Brazil won wearing yellow, and
- 2006, Italy won wearing blue.
The article mentions that the colors qualified by being worn at least 50 times since 1990 in the world cup. So for instance the Dutch and their fantastic original Orange (or ‘Oranje’) uniforms which would have garnered a 59% winning percentage didn’t count. Also the USA’s poor performance dampens the winning effects of the Red, White, and Blue colors, being the first to having a role in each of three colors.
But where the colors do come through is in predicting the winners of games, the article mentions last weeks games between Uruguay (blue) and Mexico (green) with Uruguay the winner, and the game between Argentina (blue) and Greece (white) with Argentina the winner.
So when the knock-out bracket is finally formulated look to see what colors advance. According to the data compiled, we should look for blue and yellow to advance. Can anyone say, Brazil or Argentina?
