In the movie Avengers: Infinity Wars, Doctor Strange uses his magic powers to go into the future to find out how they can defeat arch villain Thanos. Dr Strange looks at 14 million possible futures and discovers that they defeat Thanos in only one.

Meanwhile, sports analytics platform Stats Insider ran its own tournament simulator for the 2018 World Cup and discovered Australia won the cup in only three out of game 10,000 simulations. Three out of 10,000: better odds than defeating a Marvel villain with godlike powers, yet unlikely enough to wonder why we bother.

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Every four years – providing Australia qualifies for the Cup, not a done deal by any means – we go through the same national humiliation. Each World Cup we get our hopes up, with headlines screaming that we’ve never had a better squad. Each time we pray for the star du jour such as Tim Cahill or Mile Jedinak to push us over the line into the quarter finals and beyond.*