World Cup Predictions

The World Cup is officially one month away. On June 11th, the host South Africans will take on our "amigos" to the South, Mexico, in the first match of the finals. For most of the past few cups, the defending champions were given the "honor" of kicking off the finals. But Germany changed that in 2006 and the resulting contest was far more entertaining than most openers, meaning that it's a good move to have the hosts hit lead-off.
Of course, the question on everyone's mind is, "Who will win the cup?" I'm here today to answer that question.

You may be laughing right now. After all, there are 32 teams in the World Cup finals, the same as in the NFL, and my recent record predicting that has been abysmal of late. But it's a completely different beast. While many teams have won Super Bowls, only 7 nations have lifted up the World Cup trophy in victory. And of those 7, it is fairly easy to eliminate four of them based on history and circumstances. With the World Cup, you don't even need to know who is playing, what the schedule is, or what kind of form teams are showing. History says that the winner of the 2010 FIFA World Cup will be Argentina, with Germany the next best option.

Walk with me through this exercise. Below are the 32 teams that qualified for these finals. They are grouped into 8 pods of four teams each. Each group is a round-robin mini-tournament, with the top two teams from each group advancing to a knockout round. It is tricky to predict the exact order of each group. Nobody knows, for example, just how group A will shake out. The South African team is by far the weakest of the four on paper, but they are hosting the tournament and no host team has ever failed to at least advance to the second round. Mexico has some talented players and a long World Cup history, but traditionally falter early. Uruguay is one of the 7 nations to have hoisted the trophy, but that was over half a century ago and this year's edition was the last team to qualify for the finals. France has also tasted the ultimate glory, but its current squad qualified by virtue of an uncalled handball in their penultimate game against Ireland. Their best players are past the sell-by date, and the team has played poorly in recent outings. Every team in this group has a valid reason to expect advancement, and an equally valid reason to expect failure. I'm not touching it (at least not with any official prediction).

But the tournament overall is a different matter. No matter the circumstances, in the past 10 World Cups, a span covering 40 years, the winning team has always been a former champion. There are two exceptions to this rule. Argentina won their first title in 1978, and France won their lone title in 1998. In both instances, they were hosting the tournament. In fact, one would need to go all the way back to 1958 to find a team that won the title for the first time while on foreign soil. That was Brazil's first title, when a young 17-year-old by the name of Pele captured the public's imagination by scoring big goals in the final against Sweden. That was a long time ago. Basically, the champion of the World Cup will either be a repeat champion, or possibly the host team if that squad is a traditional contender.

As South Africa is hardly a traditional contender, we can eliminate them from the discussion, and focus on the previous champions. The 2010 FIFA World Cup champion will almost assuredly be one of these teams: Uruguay, Italy, Germany, Brazil, England, Argentina, or France. The real question is which one will hold this year's hardware.

We can easily eliminate Uruguay. While they've won the title twice, their last victory was 60 years ago and the team hasn't been a legitimate contender in ages. They still produce some great players, but the nation itself simply isn't large enough to produce a whole team's worth of world-class superstars. We can also safely eliminate England and France. Both of those nations field consistently competitive teams, and are always among the betting favorites, but neither has been able to win a title on foreign soil. France came as close as you can get four years ago in Germany, but it's also worth noting that France is next-door to Germany on the map. They won't feel nearly so comfortable South of the Equator. England hasn't even been very close since they won it all in London back in 1966. They usually make the knockout rounds, but always get tripped up sooner or later.

That leaves us with four "legitimate" contenders. Brazil is always a threat to take the title, having won the most with 5 trophies to their belt. Italy has 4 titles, Germany 3 and Argentina 2. Based on current players and team "form", Brazil is the easy favorite. But as I said earlier, history seems to weigh more than current players and form when it comes to the World Cup.

We need another method to determine a winner. First we can eliminate Italy. No team has repeated as World Cup champion since the Brazilians way back in 1962, a lifetime ago. Like most defending champions, the Italians look like they'll bring mostly the same guys to this tournament that they brought four years ago...only they'll be four years older.

That leaves three options, any of which would make for a historically accurate champion. The usual final determiner is the "home hemisphere" rule. In addition to host nations performing well, it happens that every single champion has won the title on "home hemisphere" soil, with two notable exceptions. For example, Argentina not only won the title at home in 1978, but also in Mexico (like Argentina in the western hemisphere) in 1986. Italy won its first title at home in 1934, in France in 1938, in Spain in 1982, and in Germany four years ago. Always, they won when close to home in the eastern hemisphere. The two notable exceptions are when Brazil won in Sweden in 1958, and when Brazil also won in South Korea/Japan in 2002. But before we give Brazil the title, note that South Africa is actually in the eastern hemisphere and has virtually the same time zone as Germany. That would give the edge to the Germans. But Germany has never won a title away from the continent of Europe, so that would give the edge back to Brazil.

Which leaves Argentina. They're "due" to win a title. Since Argentina took the crown in Mexico, Germany won in 1990. Brazil won in 2002 (and 1994). The Argentines are due. Not only that, but Argentina will feature the tournament's most visible player in Lionel Messi. It's not a coincidence that such stars tend to carry teams to titles (if given enough support, of which Messi has plenty). No matter who wins this year, some small precedent will be set simply because this is the first time the tournament has been hosted in Africa. My prediction is that Argentina will be setting that small precedent by winning their third title overall, and their first since 1986. The safe money will also be on Brazil and Germany. If anyone besides those three teams wins the tournament, it would be a major shock.
Of course, I can already hear some of you throwing out teams like Netherlands and Spain. Sure, they're loaded with talented players and are usually competitive, but history says that both will falter before the final on July 11th. I can also hear some of you screaming about how Diego Maradona will ruin Argentina's chances because he is an inept coach. That may happen, and if you believe that then by all means put your ducats on Brazil or Germany. I don't think he can screw it up that badly.

What about the US? I'll save that for another blog, but I can tell you that I'm hopeful we can at least get out of the first round.

SAH