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A football simulator predicts Brazil are set to win their sixth World Cup next summer after being run 100,000 times.

A fan with plenty of time on his hands has come-up with a mathematical formula to predict the outcome of the tournament next summer on website reddit.com.

His computer program is based on rankings and takes into account group opponents and home advantage for the bookmaker's favourites giving them a 18.9% chance of lifting the trophy.

The home nation were the only country to have lifted the famous old trophy outside of their own continent until Spain romped past Holland in South Africa last time around.

Germany are second favourites at 15.9%, slightly ahead of current world and European champions Spain in third on 12.7% in the computer model.

England come in a lowly eighth in his rankings with just a 2.6% chance of bring home the trophy reflecting their tough group which includes Uruguay and Italy.

His plan isn't the oddest way to pick a winner as we found out during the last tournament when a 'psychic' octopus in a German aquarium called Paul shot to worldwide fame by correctly predicting a number of results.