Avoiding the Drop

With a few days off before the big game, we thought it would be good to take a look back at our predictions that we made in our previews leading up to the tournament. Some of us were accurate, some of us weren’t, and then some of us were complete morons (like the guy who wrote the Group D preview for instance). Piggy-backing this will be another of our Trademark Lead Pipe Lock of the Week Roundtables for the final, coming late this afternoon.

So, just how did we do? (predicted results first, actual in parenthesis)

Group A

1. France (Uruguay)
2. Mexico (Mexico)
3. Uruguay (South Africa)
4. South Africa (France)

Don’t feel bad for Adam, because lord knows most people had this group in this order. Especially considering he saw the cracks. “I can conceivably see scenarios where France dominates the group, but I can also see an implosion similar to 2002 happening.” Well yeah the latter happened. This France team just kind of sucked. It was amazing to watch though, such a circus. Maybe you shouldn’t announce you’re replacing your manager before the biggest tournament in the sport? Nah, nah.

Group B

1. Argentina (Argentina)
2. South Korea (South Korea)
3. Nigeria (Greece)
4. Greece (Nigeria)

Kevin definitely got this part right: “Argentina should win their group outright and probably with 3 wins and 9 points. Perhaps there is a method to Maradona’s madness, but beyond the group stage, if they don’t make it to at least the semi-finals, the blame falls squarely on him.” We saw Maradona rise to glory after the groups and beating Mexico; the media suddenly loved him and he was a legit manager. And then Germany happened. A good example of how absurdly the World Cup inflates the value of managers and players. Kevin got the top two right, good on him.

Group C

1. England (USA)
2. USA (England)
3. Algeria (Slovenia)
4. Slovenia (Algeria)

TYER got the advancing teams correct but got the order a bit wrong. However, he was dead on with Algeria’s problems: “They just don’t have enough offensively for me.” Algeria did not score a goal in the groups. To be fair nobody really saw Slovenia drawing the USA and England (okay I thought they would be trouble, but not “score two early goals” trouble). He has David James as a key player for England, and given what happened on June 12^th, that’s absolutely true but probably not in the fashion he expected. The most hyped group actually lived up to the billing, providing some shock results and one hell of a tense finish.

Group D

1. Serbia (Germany)
2. Germany (Ghana)
3. Ghana (Australia)
4. Australia (Serbia)

And we’ve got our first moron. Aside from the fact that I completely forgot Neuer was starting for Germany, I was a biiiit off on Serbia. Run the group and the darkhorse to win it all? Oops. An early loss to Ghana looked bad, but then they took down Germany. All they had to do was beat Australia, without Kewell, and they were through. They couldn’t pull that off and they go down as one of the biggest busts of the tournament. On Germany though? “If the kids step up and one forward finds his form, they are going to be a hard team to beat.” Well that is exactly what happened. This team is going to be fun to watch for years to come. Also, I hate Ghana with a passion now.

Group E

1. Netherlands (Netherlands)
2. Denmark (Japan)
3. Cameroon (Denmark)
4. Japan (Cameroon)

So I got one of my eight predictions right. Bravo Georger, bravo. On the bright side I did dump all over Cameroon, who were the first team to be eliminated from the tournament. However I had Japan picking up no points and they advanced. Not a breakout tournament for Morimoto, but certainly one for Honda. He has got to be kicking himself that he moved to Russia this winter. I’m really bad at this prediction game.

Group F

1. Italy (Paraguay)
2. Paraguay (Slovakia)
3. Slovakia (New Zealand)
4. New Zealand (Italy)

I’ve always said Fuse was my hero. “Semi-finals…at least. I would expect Italy to take no less than seven of the nine points available to them in the group stage- anything less than this would be shocking.“ May I direct you to the comments of that post where I said Italy were going out (ignore the part where I said Hamsik would be the difference). The most shocking thing here, aside from New Zealand getting points from each match, is that Italy finished with a negative goal differential. Well, not really shocking I guess because they have no offense. But the days of the super elite Italian defenders is dead. Cannavaro needs to retire immediately. This group was exciting as hell to watch though, especially the Slovakia/Italy match. New Zealand can build off of this performance as well. There’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to be the top team out of Oceania each tournament.

Group G

1. Brazil (Brazil)
2. Portugal (Portugal)
3. Côte d’Ivoire (Côte d’Ivoire)
4. North Korea (North Korea)

Great now Fuse has a dead on prediction to make up for Italy and I’ve got nothing to make up for Serbia, my hero worship ends here! Further more he had Brazil and Portugal disappointing in the knockouts. Well, disappointing for Brazil is getting to the final and losing, but they definitely disappointed. Portugal got down to Spain and were screwed. Ronaldo was disappointing, and Portugal continue to be obscenely overrated. I know it’s the hardest thing to do in soccer to score against them right now, but people continue to love this team without any real return to justify it. He also noted we didn’t know what to expect from North Korea. A hard fought game against Brazil and freshly shipped in Chinese actors posing as fans proved him right. This was one hell of a prediction.

Group H

1. Spain (Spain)
2. Chile (Chile)
3. Switzerland (Switzerland)
4. Honduras (Honduras)

Would you look at that, Mags with a perfect group as well! He had Switzerland drawing Spain, and although they actually beat them in one of the shocks of the tournament, the overall point was still right. He warned against both complacency and injury issues. Torres has not been fit at all and Spain have had to adjust accordingly. After losing to the Swiss they won out, but they still did not look dominating at all in the group stage. Chile was one of the pleasant surprises of the tournament along with Paraguay. Watching Mark Gonzalez actually hit the net was surreal. The Swiss stalled out after beating Spain, and Honduras were probably one of the two or three worst teams in the tournament (performance-wise). Solid work by Mags.

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So there you have it. Some of us screwed the pooch (okay, me). Some of us nailed it. Overall we got 12 of the 16 advancing teams correct, not too shabby. So tune in today around fourish to see our predictions for the final. I’ve got Serbia winning big!