Brazil

World Cup has always been tricky - there's always an upset and a surprise team!

I suspect Portugal being one of the heavy weights that might not make it out of the Group stages, being in the same group as Brazil and Ivory Coast - I hope kina Drogba make it after an equally bad draw in the last world cup (Argentina and Netherlands).

As much as it will be bad for the world cup, I don't see home advantage being enough to see SA through the group stage of a group with France, Mexico and Uruguay, unless like Pondi said, they vuvuzela their opponents deaf (nice one)

I also don't see Maradona helping Argentina win the world cup - it's not the team, it's the coach!Spain & England have to prove that they're not perennial underachivers in the world cup despite fielding good sides each time - I think Spain have a better chance of doing that!

Anyway, based on the world cup time table, and assuming the group stages have only one major upset (Portugal exiting) these are my predictions:
Round of 16:
Winner A - France vs Second B - Nigeria/Korea = Winner 1
Winner C - England vs Second D - Serbia/Ghana = Winner 2
Winner D - Germany vs Second C - USA/Slovenia = Winner 3
Winner B - Argentina vs Second A - Mexico/SA = Winner 4
Winner E - Netherlands vs Second F - Slovakia/Paraguay = Winner 5
Winner G - Brazil vs Second H - Chile/Switzerland = Winner 6
Winner F - Italy vs Second E - Denmark/Cameroon = Winner 7
Winner H - Spain vs Second G - Ivory Coast/Portugal = Winner 8

Quarters:

Winner 5 - Netherlands vs Winner 6 - Brazil = Winner 9
Winner 1 - France vs Winner 2 - England = Winner 10
Winner 4 - Argentina vs Winner 3 - Germany = Winner 11
Winner 7 - Italy vs Winner 8 - Spain = Winner 12

Semis:Where we separate the real men from the boys!
Winner 10 - England vs Winner - 9 Brazil (very tight)
Winner 11 - Germany (very tight) vs Winner 12 - Spain (very tight)

Finals: Brazil vs Germany (upset)

Winners: Brazil

Assumptions: All the big dogs top their groups with most upsets happening on runner up position.

May the best team through the entire tournament win! I have no big hopes for African teams in this world cup unless their forma changes drastically from the ACN displays.

I don't think mafala mafala will see round 2.
After highlights of Mexico and Uruguay in the qualifiers I would not even bet on France to top Group A. I'd say Mexico followed by France as runners up.

By Dinakar Sethuraman
May 18 (Bloomberg) -- England will repeat its 1966 soccer
World Cup triumph in South Africa this year, according to
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
While record five-time champion Brazil is the strongest
team playing in the 32-nation event, England will beat Spain in
the July 11 final, according to Matthew Burgess and Marco Dion,
London-based analysts with JPMorgan’s equity quantitative
analysis team.
“Whilst our model points towards Brazil as being the
strongest team to take part in the World Cup, our World Cup Wall
Chart indicates that thanks to the actual fixtures determined by
the schedule, we believe England will be the winner of the 2010
World Cup,” Burgess and Dion said in a report released today.
The 18 previous editions of soccer’s four-yearly
championship have produced just seven different winners, while
six countries have been represented in the past 10 finals. UBS
Wealth Management Research, which correctly predicted Italy
would win the 2006 World Cup, forecast last month that Brazil
will win this year’s tournament.

On matters football an Englishman cocks it up again.
Lord Triesman chairman of the FA has caused an uproar by suggesting that the Spanish have asked the Russians to help them bribing the referees during this summer's World Cup and in turn will support them in their bid for the 2018 World cup.

Needless to say he has resigned and FiFa are investigating the allegations...Englands bid for 2018 up in smoke?? time will tell.(He was actually githongod by his PA)

Now on a different matter all together the new PS3 2010 world cup game was launched 3 weeks ago and i must commend them for putting my beloved Kenya, first time actually. Now the problem is that it's quite advanced and it had scenes of the coaches and decisions they make but how come Kenya has no coach? In fact in the whole world represented it's only us who seem to play without a coach? Maneno gani haya tena!!

Not to forget that Brazil won the Confederation Cup last year in SA same season as the upcoming World Cup with remarkable ease.

2012....Brazil had to come from 2 goals down to defeat USA in the final....that to me is not winning with "remarkable ease".

I meant the tournament not the match plus you could tell even as the match was on progress that US were not gonna win it. They sailed to the final by luck not talent.

@Taz, you are not alone at wondering what Dunga is up to. If you watched Brazil's friendly game with Ireland sometime ago, you'd have realized that the current squad is playing a very different game from what you know Brazil to play. Infact, they are playing that lousy football associated with England & Germany; that of long crosses for a connecting header. Probably that's why the likes of Ronaldinho can't fit here.