Machine learning predicts World Cup winner

The research paper this article is based on: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.03208

Other posts of the same article:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17310365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17309996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305632

Can they be combined?