Spain is poised to win the Euros, according to a full simulation by UK-based Timbersource, with the three-time winners defeating England to take their fourth crown at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, Germany.
The full simulation, reported by Wood Cental last month, ranked the 24 Euro participants based on forestland rather than sporting ability – with the formula successfully picking Spain to make the final.
“The bracket and routes to the final were drawn from the official Uefa Euros bracket; we then cross-referenced this with the forestland data to find the eventual winner in Spain,” according to Timbersource, which used Worldometre data to trace forest sizes in every country across Europe.
So, how successful has Timbersource been in predicting the Euros?
As per the results, the simulation picked 9 of 16 teams that made it’s way into the knockout stages, 5 of the quarter-finalists and 2 of the semi-finalists. Interestingly, it predicted the blockbuster Spain-Germany quarter-final and the Spain-France semi-final result, although the simulation had the two football powerhouses playing off in the final.
For what it’s worth, Spain, with 18.49 million hectares of forestland, beats out France (17.22 million hectares), and Turkey (11.92 million hectares) as the three largest countries in Europe by forest area. For more information, including the full data sets, visit Timbersource’s website.
The UEFA European Championships (popularly known as the Euros)kick off on June 14, with the final scheduled to kick off on Sunday night. Behind the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympic Games, it is the third-most watched sporting event in the world, with the 2016 final watched by a global audience of 600 million people.
According to data collected by Our World In Data, Europe has the world’s largest share of global forests—about 25% of the total forest cover—ahead of South America, which has 20%.
In addition to being the largest area by forest area, it is also the world’s third largest consumption market—behind China and the United States—and, through its signature policy, the EUDR, which will introduce the world’s strongest anti-deforestation regulations.
