With so much at stake, we do not expect Wednesday's encounter to be a free-flowing affair, but with New Zealand ranked 31 places higher in the FIFA World Rankings than the Solomon Islands, we think that Hay's side will have enough quality to edge out their opponents.
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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 Solomon Islands win with a probability of 46.82%. A win for New Zealand had a probability of 28.94% and a draw had a probability of 24.2%.
The most likely scoreline for a Solomon Islands win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.37%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (9.11%) and 2-0 (7.51%). The likeliest New Zealand win was 1-2 (7.08%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.35%). The actual scoreline of 0-5 was predicted with a 0.1% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole correctly predicted that New Zealand would win this match.
