1. 2014 World Cup Prediction Jared Ness

2. World Cup Play  Consists of 32 international teams  Must pass through 5 stages http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/teams/

3. Stages  Stage 1, groupings A-H of 4 teams.  4 teams play each other to gain points:  3 win, 1 draw, 0 loss  Stage 2-5 are single game elimination http://www.mlssoccer.com/

4. MLP learning with BP  Will take data from the first stage of World Cup to predict the final stages outcomes.  For now will test out previous years World Cup stats to check authenticity http://bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org/

5. Inputs  8 features based on team performance  Goals for, Shots, Shots on goal, fouls committed, corner kicks, direct free kicks to goal, indirect free kicks to goal, possession  Each input value in normalized based on team played based on equation:  y iA = x iA /(x iA +x iB ), y iB = x iB /(x iA +x iB )  Therefore y= 0 - 1

6. Inputs  The averages of the first 3 games will be taken and used to compare for stage 2  This will continue through each stage with each victorious team http://www.worldcupblog.org/

7. Training  Based on first 3 games will take undefeated and winless teams data, set it to 1 and 0 respectively  Continue to run until smallest error occurs and then run stage 2 data  After stage 2 take undefeated data and train the program again.  This continues after each stage until there are no more undefeated teams

8. Results  Pending  Will test accuracy on previous World Cups. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/