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Countdown's Rachel Riley is predicting CHILE will triumph at the World Cup after number-crunching the data of previous winners from the past three decades.

Her mathematical analysis - which compares goal averages, goal scorers, win rates, climate and geography - suggests the South American team is statistically the most likely to take the title .

Oxbridge educated Riley, 28, was commissioned to undertake her study by Ladbrokes, for whom she will be an ambassador during the tournament, which kicks off on June 12.

She reached her conclusion after deducing that performances in the qualifying rounds are a good indicator of what will follow.

Since the Mexico World Cup in 1986, the record books show that five of the seven winners have only had a win rate of between 50-66% in their qualifying rounds – suggesting it is crucial not to peak too soon.

In the last 30 years only one team has won the World Cup with a qualifying win rate higher than 70%.

his potentially rules out those teams who did too well in the qualifiers - including Germany and Holland who each scored a 90% win rate, plus Belgium (80%) and Spain (75%). Chile headed into the tournament with a steady 56% win rate.

(Image: Getty)

Examining goal scoring averages, the previous seven winning teams only scored an average of 2.1 goals per game during qualifying rounds.

This takes England out of the running, because we scored over three goals per game in the 10 qualifying matches.

The top scoring player in previous World Cup winning teams has typically netted an average of 4.85 goals in qualification – this statistically puts Uruguay and Argentina out of contention for 2014, as Luis Suarez bagged 11 goals and Lionel Messi got 10.

Chile, however, managed 1.8 goals per game average and their top scorers Vidal and Vargas both scored the near perfect 5 goals each.

A huge swathe of teams are eliminated from the equation simply because no team from Africa, North and Central America, and Asia and Oceania has ever won the World Cup.

This left Italy, Portugal, France, Chile, Colombia and home nation Brazil as Rachel’s top six contenders.

But as no European team has ever won a World Cup held on South American soil – Italy, Portugal and France were knocked out.

Of the remaining South American teams, Brazil is the pre-tournament favourite at 3/1 - however NO pre-tournament favourite has won since 1986.

(Image: Lars Baron)

Of the remaining two South American teams, Rachel believes that while Colombia has the easier group, the loss of star player Radamel Falcao means their chances of success are severely hampered.

Rachel feels that Chile has the stronger squad and also believes that being ranked 13th in the FIFA standings is a lucky omen because Italy were also ranked 13th when they won in 2006.

Football fanatic Rachel said: “Having crunched all the numbers and stats my maths suggests Chile are a good bet to upset the odds at 40/1.

"They might be amongst the outsiders, but the statistics and form imply they will be this year’s dark horses.

"They’ve got a decent team, and although it’s a tough group they tick all the boxes and I’m convinced Chile can go all the way.

“Everyone thinks the winner will come from one of the top 10 teams, but the key stats on qualifying performance, goals scored, goalscorers, host nation and current outright odds suggest the likes of pre-tournament favourites Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Germany, Italy and France will be going home empty handed.

"As for England, I’ll be cheering on Roy’s Boys, but I’m not sure it’s going to be their year.”

Read all about the Chile World Cup squad here