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Notes -
The parity would completely change if they did 5 or 7 game playoff series. Yes you can catch someone sleeping but you won’t 7 times.
My gut says a pro soccer team would rarely lose in 1 match to a top level developmental team. But it may be more than American sports.
Notre Dame has lost to Navy which was sort of semi-pro versus completely amateur but it’s in a 1 in 40 event.
World Cup in many ways is like the first game of the year in football before teams develop chemistry and figure out strengths weakness and adapt. So that adds variability.
So I think a lot of the variance you describe would disappear over bigger samples and after teams have played more games together. Alabama might beat Jacksonville if Alabama was in mid season form versus Jacksonville playing essentially their first preseason game (a month of training camp).
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