Colombia
- Coach
- Néstor Lorenzo foreign · Argentine
- Elo (model)
- 1,982 world 6th
- Squad value
- €382M
- Power → Reality
- 8th 8th +0.03 pp · neutral draw
§ 01
The forecast
How far Colombia goes — the survival probability at each stage of the bracket, from the tournament Monte-Carlo simulation. Each bar carries its ±1.96·MC-SE interval.
Fig. D1 Fixture-aware · 100k sims
Colombia — stage progression
On the central forecast, Colombia more likely than not reaches the Round of 16 (58%). Champion probability is 4.1% ± 0.06 pts.
§ 02
The group & the path
Group K advancement odds, the bracket half Colombia sits in, and the earliest round they could meet each leading side.
| Group K | Confed | Advance (top 2) | Reach R32 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇵🇹Portugal | UEFA | 64.4% | 93.8% |
| 2 | 🇨🇴Colombia | CONMEBOL | 57.9% | 91.4% |
| 3 | 🇨🇩Congo DR | CAF | 10.8% | 40.2% |
| 4 | 🇺🇿Uzbekistan | AFC | 8.4% | 36.4% |
Source · Oxford Football Forecasting model
Earliest possible meetings
Collision = the earliest round the bracket wiring could pit Colombia against that side. Full bracket & collision matrix →
§ 03
Match by match
Colombia's three group fixtures, each with the predicted win / draw / loss split and the single most-likely scoreline. Probabilities are this team's own orientation; they sum to 100%.
How a match forecast is built
Each pairing is scored by the ensemble (Dixon-Coles bivariate-Poisson, the Bayesian hierarchical model and the global LightGBM-Poisson, log-pooled), producing an 11×11 scoreline grid that is marginalised into win/draw/loss, expected goals (λ), over/under 2.5 and both-teams-to-score. These are the same distributions the tournament simulator consumes, oriented here to Colombia. Knockout fixtures are not shown — their occupants are still probabilistic, so there is no single pairing to forecast yet.
§ 04
Strength profile
Where Colombia stands against the median of the 48-team field, metric by metric. The dot is Colombia; the dashed line is the field median (1.0×).
Fig. D2 Relative to the 48-team median
Colombia vs the field
Read each row as a multiple of the field median: dots to the right of the dashed line are above-field, to the left below. Raw values are labelled on the right so the comparison is transparent.
§ 05
History vs squad
The decoupling residual g — whether the squad’s market value sits above, or below, what the team’s record predicts.
Fig. D3 Bayesian projection residual g
Colombia on the decoupling axis
g = +0.47 ± 0.05: the squad is valued above its record — the transfer market rates this side above what its results have earned.
What g means — and its limits
g is the residual from regressing a team’s current squad market value on its
history-based strength in the Bayesian hierarchical model. Positive g
means the squad is valued above what the team’s record predicts; negative means the
record outruns the squad’s price (the side achieves more than its market value implies).
Regressed on out-of-sample success the slope is positive — squad-rich sides go a touch
further — but not statistically significant at n = 3 tournaments, so treat
a single team’s g as a descriptive read, not a hard prediction.
The full decoupling essay →
§ 06
The squad
All 26 selected players — club, league (with relative strength), club-season minutes and goals, caps. Sort any column.
| # | Player | Pos | Club | League | Club min | Gls | Caps | NT gls |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | David Ospina | GK | Atlético Nacional | Primera A −0.38z | 3,554 | 0 | 130 | 0 |
| 2 | Daniel Muñoz | DF | Crystal Palace | Premier League +2.21z | 3,886 | 5 | 46 | 3 |
| 3 | Jhon Lucumí | DF | Bologna | Serie A +1.70z | 3,591 | 1 | 37 | 1 |
| 4 | Santiago Arias | DF | Independiente | — | — no club data | — | 68 | 0 |
| 5 | Kevin Castaño | MF | River Plate | Liga Profesional Argentina +0.10z | 3,174 | 1 | 25 | 0 |
| 6 | Richard Ríos | MF | Benfica | Primeira Liga +1.14z | 3,485 | 7 | 32 | 2 |
| 7 | Luis Díaz | FW | Bayern Munich | Bundesliga +1.84z | 4,065 | 26 | 74 | 22 |
| 8 | Jorge Carrascal | MF | Flamengo | Serie A +1.03z | 1,317 | 3 | 24 | 2 |
| 9 | Jhon Córdoba | FW | Krasnodar | Premier League +0.27z | 2,618 | 17 | 21 | 6 |
| 10 | James Rodríguez (captain) | MF | Minnesota United FC | — | — no club data | — | 126 | 31 |
| 11 | Jhon Arias | MF | Palmeiras | — | — no club data | — | 38 | 6 |
| 12 | Camilo Vargas | GK | Atlas | Liga MX +0.22z | 2,995 | 0 | 42 | 0 |
| 13 | Yerry Mina | DF | Cagliari | Serie A +1.70z | 2,259 | 2 | 54 | 8 |
| 14 | Gustavo Puerta | DF | Racing Santander | Segunda División +2.13z | 2,723 | 3 | 6 | 1 |
| 15 | Juan Portilla | MF | Athletico Paranaense | — | — no club data | — | 10 | 0 |
| 16 | Jefferson Lerma | MF | Crystal Palace | Premier League +2.21z | 2,557 | 0 | 65 | 5 |
| 17 | Johan Mojica | DF | Mallorca | La Liga +2.13z | 2,737 | 0 | 45 | 1 |
| 18 | Willer Ditta | DF | Cruz Azul | Liga MX +0.22z | 4,815 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 19 | Cucho Hernández | FW | Real Betis | La Liga +2.13z | 3,127 | 15 | 9 | 2 |
| 20 | Juan Fernando Quintero | MF | River Plate | Liga Profesional Argentina +0.10z | 943 | 1 | 49 | 6 |
| 21 | Jaminton Campaz | FW | Rosario Central | Liga Profesional Argentina +0.10z | 2,190 | 5 | 10 | 1 |
| 22 | Deiver Machado | DF | Nantes | Ligue 1 +1.70z | 1,034 | 0 | 15 | 0 |
| 23 | Davinson Sánchez | DF | Galatasaray | Süper Lig +0.49z | 3,534 | 2 | 79 | 4 |
| 24 | Álvaro Montero | GK | Vélez Sarsfield | Liga Profesional Argentina +0.10z | 950 | 3 | 12 | 0 |
| 25 | Luis Suárez | FW | Sporting CP | Primeira Liga +1.14z | 4,089 | 35 | 12 | 5 |
| 26 | Andrés Gómez | FW | Vasco da Gama | Serie A +1.03z | 1,427 | 1 | 8 | 2 |
Source · Official squad announcements · API-Football (global club coverage). 4 of 26 players have no club season matched in API-Football — shown as “— no club data”, not imputed. Form coverage for this squad: 85%.
§ 07
Tournament context
The host-nation environment this team meets — diaspora support, climate and altitude exposure at their venues, language familiarity.
Diaspora in the hosts
913,282
17.0 per 1,000 of home population
Host-language familiarity
Shared
primary language Spanish · spoken in a host
Climate adaptation gap
+2.4°C
home-vs-venue heat differential
Venue extremes
42°C
peak heat index · altitude up to 2,287 m
Travel
2h
max time-zone shift · nearest venue 2,452 km
Source · UN DESA international migrant stock · US Census Bureau · Open-Meteo & venue records
§ 08
Elo trajectory
Colombia's long-run strength against the qualified-field median, 1957–2026.
Fig. D4 eloratings.net method · year-end values
Colombia — Elo since 1957
Colombia ends the series at 2064 Elo, the world’s 6th-ranked side — above the qualified-field median.
Which Elo is this?
This line is the public eloratings.net series (year-end ratings), which terminates exactly at the current rating and world rank shown on the marker. It is a different number from the Elo shown in the header band (a panel-normalised rating used inside the forecast); the two are ~0.99 correlated but on different scales. We keep them distinct rather than blend them.
§ 09
Data coverage
Validated on n=3 held-out tournaments; coverage below 1.0 means part of this squad's club-form/fitness is imputed (the global de-biasing layer). For Colombia, 4 of 26 players are shown as “— no club data”. Full validation, calibration & conformal coverage →