We said: Japan 2-0 El Salvador
Although both of these nations have not posted victories of late, Japan's matches have been against far better opposition. With that in mind, as well as home advantage, we can only back the Asian giants to prevail in comfortable fashion.
Read more.Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Japan win with a probability of 61.75%. A draw had a probability of 23% and a win for El Salvador had a probability of 15.2%.
The most likely scoreline for a Japan win was 1-0 with a probability of 14.67%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (12.82%) and 2-1 (9.36%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.71%), while for a El Salvador win it was 0-1 (6.13%). The actual scoreline of 6-0 was predicted with a 0.3% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Japan would win this match.