FIFA World Cup

I posted this on my status, but I just realized it might be a cool forum thread.

Predictions: group stage winners will be Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Netherlands, Ivory Coast, Greece, Italy, England, France, Ecuador, Argentina, Nigeria, Germany, Portugal, Belgium and Korea. Round of 16 winners will be Brazil, Spain, England, Italy, Argentina, France, Germany and Portugal. Quarter finals won by Spain, Italy, Argentina and Germany. Finals shall be between Germany and Spain, and will be won by Germany.

My brother and I have bets on for who will get the most predictions right.

Aglardia: Lots of SA countries lol...

My brother is predicting Brazil too. Should be interesting.

Group A: Brazil, Croatia
Group B: Holland, Spain
Group C: Columbia, Japan
Group D: Uruguay, England
Group E: Switzerland, France
Group F: Argentina, Nigeria
Group G: Portugal, Germany
Group H: Belgium, Russia

2nd Round Winners:
Spain
Holland
Columbia
Uruguay
Switzerland
Argentina
Portugal
Belgium

Quarters:
Holland
Columbia
Argentina
Belgium

Semis:
Columbia
Belgium

Final Winner:
Belgium

Very hard draw for the initial winners of Groups A and B! If any of them make it to the final, they would have had one of the hardest roads to date I think!

nzlockie: Oh and Brazil knocked out of the second round of their own competition! Crazy!

Brazil v Croatia opening game starts tomorrow 8am NZT!

I'm picking Brazil to win 3-2.

nzlockie: I'll go for Brazil 3-0. Will be watching this one!

admin: A lot of speculation tonight about an upset win to Croatia!
There's a lot of historical precedent!

Should be exciting.

Clearly, since I felt the need to post that 4 times!

nzlockie: I remove speedily

admin: Haha you certainly do! Nice work!

That was my bad I think. Screen froze so I hit submit a bunch of times til I got a 500 error. Refreshed and my impatience was there in all its glory.

nzlockie: Brazil 3-1 - halfway between our predictions!

OK, with most of the group winners decided, I did some calculations. I awarded two points for picking a winner and an extra point for picking the qualifying order correctly. This means a perfect score such as your Group A pick was worht a total of 6 points.

Using that criteria, the scores stand at Admin - 20, Nzlockie - 21 with two groups left undecided.

BUT! Group G is virtually decided as we both had Portugal and Germany but in different orders. Germany is gauranteed to progress and is almost certainly going to beat USA to qualify top giving you the one equalising point. (Portugal can still make it but it would be an absolute miracle.)

So the big issue is Group H. We both have Belgium qualifying top, so we're pretty safe there. Either way we'll score the same for them. However you've chosen Korea and I've gone with Russia. Both teams can still make it but they need results.

Russia needs to beat Algeria and for Belgium to beat Korea or for Korea to win but only by one.
Korea needs to beat Belgium and for Algeria to beat Russia or for Korea to win by more than two.

If niether team qualify then we head into the second round tied up!

Exciting!

You have Spain going all the way to the finals... want to repick winners for the second round match ups?
We can do two points for a win, three points if you picked that winner originally? Carry that system through to the finals?

nzlockie: Alright ok. I got my round of 16 matchups wrong anyway.
My new round of 16 victors is: Brazil, Netherlands, Uruguay, Costa Rica, France, Argentina, Belgium, Germany.
My new QF victors is: Brazil, Netherlands, France, Germany (why must Argentina-Germany always be a QF!?)
New SF winners are: Brazil and Germany.
And I'm sticking to Germany to win overall.

admin: Germany is definitely a solid choice based on that first round.

My second round is: Brazil, Columbia, France, Germany, Holland, Costa Rica, Argentina, Belgium.

My QF's are therefore: Columbia, Germany, Holland, Belgium.

Final is still Belgium winning over Columbia.

admin: You might want to recheck your draws. Germany and Argentina are on opposite sides of the draw now.

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/

nzlockie: Dammit. I'll never get the hang of this...

admin: Uruguay loses to Columbia!
Not a good start for you!

nzlockie: Brazil-Chile was really tense too. Damn.