Wealth correlation with soccer ability?

POLITICO has been crunching the numbers to see how all 48 of this year’s World Cup participants rank in several other off-field categories, which we'll share more of over the weekend. In today's item, we look at whether GDP per capita has any connection to soccer performance. As you can see, the chart does show some positive correlation — note, for example, wealthy tournament contenders such as France, the Netherlands and Germany all in the upper right corner. But it's not a perfect indicator. By this metric, Qatar is the wealthiest country in the tournament — and it lost 6-0 to Canada on Thursday ...