History tells that every 20 years a nation wins their first football world cup. So if you predict your answer based on history you will predict Croatia to win FIFA 2018 world cup!
If Data Analysis is introspecting and modelling data to support decision making, then let us just take a look of what has happened so far.
France have reached finals fighting its way through a stronger pool undefeated. 2:1 against Australia, 1:0 against Peru, a draw against Denmark, 4:3 against legendary Messi’s Argentina, 2:0 against Uruguay, and 1:0 against mighty Belgium. In all the three knockout encounters it secured clean wins. On the other hand Croatia had a rollercoaster ride. It advanced from the group stage with a 2:0 win against Nigeria, stunning 3:0 win against Argentina, and a modest 2:1 win against Iceland. Then it somehow crawled through the first two knockout matches through penalty shootouts against fairy weaker teams, before shocking England in the semi-finals. Both France and Croatia have met head to head 5 times; Croatia are yet to secure their first win against France, whereas France have won three times against Croatia. So if you do a data modelling, even most conservatively without throwing in any weightage factor you would probably predict a France win in FIFA 2018 world cup finals!
Who do you predict to win? If you are a historian your pick will be Croatia. If you are among the data analysts your inference would be France.
Personally I predict a Croatia win. Not because I believe history more than data analysis; I have a special respect for math (though with a bit of approximation)
Croatia : Argentina = 3 : 0
France : Argentina = 4 : 3 = 1 : 0 (deducting 3 goals from each)
So Croatia : France = 3 : 1 (eliminating the common denominator Argentina)
Who would be right? Historian or Data Analysts? Or my approximated math :)?
Well, we will find out tonight!