Raiders of the Lost Ark, or rather... of the Next Lost World Cup Host!

On December 23rd, 2023, just before Christmas and the final phase of all Continental Cups and Wildcard games (for those who unfortunately didn't manage to qualify directly), the Hattrick team offers the opportunity to the community to vote for the host countries of the 37th edition of World Cup and Nations Cup.

The way to vote in order to choose the host countries (it was possible to vote both on Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/hattrickfootballmanager/) and on Global English forum, see (17571298.1) and (17571299.1)) was a hot topic on Global (another consequence of global warming?), as you can read here: (17571273.1). The main goal to achieve was, for our new Community manager HT-Chase (140015), to increase Hattrick presence on social media, for something that was purely symbolic, as being the host doesn't give any in-game advantage during these competitions played by NT and U21 teams.

But while waiting for Santa to deliver my Christmas gifts, the question that kept me awake day and night was how the continents and the countries in these continents were pre-selected by HTs. Did they use a special artificial intelligence? Did they carry out some kind of secret reunion in HT-Johan's warehouse? Or maybe was it decided after a drinking game during an afterwork in Malmö'?

As you know, you can find the host list for NT World Cup and U21 World Cup in this page: (/World/WorldCup/History.aspx) (for Nations Cups and Continental Cups, go on their page and filter manually).

In this article, we will first briefly remind the results of the polls of the host countries for Nations Cup and World Cup (37th edition). We will then try, using logic, geography, history and statistics, to solve the mystery of the choice of World Cup host countries, to finally guess which will be the next continents and countries that will host for the next national teams' competitions coming in the next seasons! Or not? :)

Ready? Let's go!

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Nations Cup and World Cup 37th edition - results of votes for host countries

Before digging more on how continents and countries are selected / pre-selected to host a national teams' competition, let's tackle the current countries voted to host the next World Cup and the next Nations Cup (season 37 edition).

The results of this vote were announced the same day at 20:30 (CET) on Twitch live stream 'Hattrick Direct' by HT-Chase, HT-Johan and HT-Tasos: (https://www.twitch.tv/hattrickdirect)

Nations Cup
The continent chosen for the next Nations Cup was Africa, and it was possible to vote for one of these 3 countries:
- Nigeria, which already hosted the first Africa Continental Cup (33rd edition, ended 23/07/2021)
- Tanzania, which already hosted the third U21 Nations Cup (34th edition, ended 11/11/2022)
- Botswana, which never hosted an international tournament before.

The results are shown in the following post: (17571298.11)
Also better illustrated in the chart below:
(https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/nation11.png)

The winner was Nigeria, even if they came short on the forum, but they had much more supporters on Instagram.
Then we had Tanzania and Botswana, which came respectively 2nd and 3rd.

World Cup
The continent chosen for the next World Cup was America, and it was possible to vote for one of these 3 countries:
- Canada, which already hosted the 13th U20 World Cup 14 years ago (ended 27/12/2009)
- Panama, which already hosted the 17th U20 World Cup 11 years ago (ended 10/06/2012)
- Peru, which already hosted the 10th U20 World Cup 15 years ago (ended 24/02/2008) but also, more recently the 4th U21 Nations Cup (35th edition).

The results are shown in the following post: (17571298.45)
Also better illustrated in the chart below:
(https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/world_12.png)

The winner was Canada, and here the results are pretty clear, both on forum and Instagram, even if the difference with Perù was much closer on the forum.
Then we have Peru and Panama, which came respectively 2nd and 3rd.

Congratulations! But...
Of course, we can congratulate both Canada and Nigeria for being the hosts of respectively the World Cup and the Nations Cup.
But reading these results, a few questions came to my mind:
- How come that countries which already hosted a national teams' competition were pre-selected for the vote of this edition?
- Has the "rotation" between continents always been respected in the past?
- Has the country host always had a symbolic effect? Or is there a correlation between the host country and the performance of its national team / its U21 team?
- And is there a way to predict the continents and the countries that will be candidate to host the next international competitions?

To answer to these questions, we will have to use all our skills in history, logic, geography and statistics. Let's go!


A little bit of Hattrick geography...

Better than a long text, let's start with a nice Hattrick map:
(https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/hattri17.png)

And a nice chart: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/hattri19.png)

As you already know, there are, on December 2023, 147 countries in Hattrick.
As we can see, Hatttrick is present all over the continents, being most present in Europe as it is the continent of origin of the game, and less present in Africa. But regarding active teams, we can notice that Hattrick is also mainly Europe-centered, followed by America and, far behind, Asia-Oceania and Africa.

Regarding the "size" of Hattrick countries regarding active teams, we can see also notice around 68.8% of countries have less than 499 active teams, whereas "big" countries (with more than 5 000 active teams) represent ~9.5% of countries (based on December 2023 numbers).


Hattrick history: correlation between host countries and performance in World Cup?

It was said, at the beginning of this article, that the host countries don't have in-game advantages, and that it was only a symbolic feature, the country's name being only used in the host country field in the top page of the World Cup. But was it already the case since NT and U20 World Cups exist?

Our long journalistic investigation to write this article about this aspect lead us in the grey zone, finding, with an anonymous source, the following post in the NT Coaches forum, from a still-active HT, dating from January 16th, 2014:

As of the World Cup in Brazil we are going to remove the home advantage of the organizing country.

So there was an home advantage before for the host country! As the knowledge about the match engine was darker at that time, theories vary about if it was a full home advantage, half of it or even if it really existed. Only Saint-HT-Bjorn or Saint-HT-Tjecken may know that information, so I'll let the best NT experts debate about this.

Based on the previous post, we can say that the last NT/U20 World Cup editions concerned by this home advantage are the following:
- For NT: NT World Cup n°20 in Tunisia (ended 22-11-2013)
- For U20: U20 World Cup n°20 in Italy (ended 13-04-2014)

Let's now look above all the NT/U20-21 competitions, if this home advantage had an impact on the winning of a medal (gold, silver or bronze) during the competitions:

Category	Country	Host Winner
NT	Netherlands	NT WC n°3 (ended 20-07-2003) - Bronze
NT	Germany	NT WC n°8 (ended 13-08-2006) - Gold
NT	Russia	NT WC n°9 (ended 25-03-2007) - Bronze
NT	Portugal	NT WC n°10 (ended 04-11-2007) - Gold
U20	Romania	U20 WC n°3 (ended 09-11-2003) - Gold
U20	Finland	U20 WC n°18 (ended 20-01-2013) - Bronze
U20	Italy	U20 WC n°18 (ended 13-04-2014) - Gold
U21 Nations Cup	Sweden	U21 NC n°32 (ended 20-08-2021) - Gold
NT CC Africa Cup	Nigeria	NT CC Africa n°33 (ended 23-07-2021) - Bronze

7 teams playing home won a medal on a total of 40 NT and U20 competitions (17.5%), whereas only 2 teams won a medal over 84 NT/U20/U21/CC/NC competitions (2.4%), so we can definitely say that this home advantage gave, well, some kind of advantage to win a medal.

Of course, we cannot rule out totally the motivation of coaches / scouts / NT players owners about knowing that their countries was host, but we unfortunately cannot have insight about that.


The rotation of continents

HTs claim, on last Twitch stream, that they were very careful about alternating the continents for each NT/U21 competition. But were they?
We analyzed this rotation in all international competitions (well, for continental competitions, there's no point rotating, as the continent remains the same for each Continental Cup :p):
- NT World Cup: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/nt_wor10.png)
- U20/U21 World Cup: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/u20_2110.png)
- NT Nations Cup: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/nt_nat11.png)
- U21 Nations Cup: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/u21_na10.png)

Well, we can say that the rotation theory was generally applied at least for the 4 last editions.
We can say, though, that Europe was privileged between NT World Cups n°8 and n°11, and between U20 World Cups n°18 and n°23, where Europe was selected in a row as the continent of the host country.
But what we can say, to HTs' defense, is that until World Cup n°22 (at least), the country host was chosen not via a rotation of continents, but via a vote from the community, where local communities from each country had to apply to be included in the vote.

But hey, if the rotation of continents' principle, used for the last 4 U21/NT World Cup and Nations Cup editions, is applied, that means that we already know the Continents that will host the next editions :p
It should be the following:

Cup / season	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41
NT World Cup	America	Asia /Oceania	Europe	Africa	America	Asia /Oceania	Europe	Africa	America
NT Nations Cup	America	Asia /Oceania	Europe	America	Africa	Asia /Oceania	Europe	America	Africa
U21 World Cup	Europe	Africa	America	Asia /Oceania	Europe	Africa	America	Asia /Oceania	Europe
U21 Nations Cup	Europe	Africa	America	Europe	Asia /Oceania	Africa	America	Europe	Asia /Oceania

Let's see in the future if this rotation will be followed, or if a different path will be chosen! :p


Who hosted the most?

If we consider only NT and U21 World Cups, summarized in this link (https://stage.hattrick.org/World/WorldCup/History.aspx), we can notice that:
- Brazil is the only country who hosted twice a NT World Cup (2005 and 2014)
- Romania, Finland and Italy are the only countries who hosted twice a U20 World Cup (Romania: 2003 & 2015, Italy: 2004 & 2014, Finland: 2008 & 2013).
- Argentina, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Israel, Oceania, Trinidad & Tobago are the only countries who hosted both a NT World Cup and a U21 World Cup edition.

But if we consider also Nations Cups and Continental Cups (both NT & U21), that's where we see the most gaps:
- 1 country hosted 4 editions (Oceania: 1 NT WC, 1 U20 WC, 1 NT CC, 1 U21 CC)
- 9 countries hosted 3 editions (Argentina, Brazil, China, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Sweden)
- 19 countries hosted 2 editions
- 55 countries hosted 1 edition
- 63 countries never hosted an edition of a World Cup, Nations Cup or Continental Cup (being NT or U21).

Here are some stats by continent:
(https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/hattri11.jpg)

The following world map summarizes all the countries who never host, host once, twice, 3 times or 4 times a national teams' competition: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/countr10.png)

You will also find continent-focused maps below:
Europe: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/nt_u2110.png)
America: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/nt_u2111.png)
Asia-Oceania: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/asia_c10.jpg)
Africa: (https://i.servimg.com/u/f29/20/01/24/70/nt_u2113.png)

Countries which never hosted are the following (in blue in the previous map):

- Europe: Albania, Austria, Belarus, Cyprus, England, Hungary, Iceland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, North Macedonia, Northern Ireland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey

- America: Belize, Cuba, Curaçao, Ecuador, Grenada, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Uruguay

- Asia & Oceania: Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Taiwan, Guam, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mongolia, Nepal, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, United Arab Emirates

- Africa: Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Comoros, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Senegal, Uganda

So, HTs, let's catch up, and let's choose, for the next NT/U21 competitions, countries which never were hosts in the previous editions! Choose one of the "blue" countries! :p

I hope all of you enjoyed this article :)

Link directly to this article (HT-ML, for the forum): [ArticleID=23388]