Your World Cup Predictions

If anyone can be bothered! It seems that there are many who couldn't give a flying you-know-what about the World Cup or about England, but for those, like me, who are excited, what are your predictions? Feel free to add more categories...

Here's mine:

Winners: Brazil
Runners Up: Spain
Third Place: Argentina

Top scorer: Neymar
Player of the tournament: Neymar

How far will England reach: Quarter finals
England's stand out player: Raheem Sterling

Highest scoring result of the tournament: Nigeria 1 - 5 Argentina
Biggest upsets, surprise/interesting results (if any): Chile to beat Netherlands and France to beat Germany in the quarter finals
Flop of the tournament (can be a team or player): Belgium

 

Here's mine:

Winners: Spain
Runners Up: Germany
Third Place: Brazil

Top scorer: Fred
Player of the tournament: Iniesta

How far will England reach: Quarter finals
England's stand out player: Adam Lallana

Highest scoring result of the tournament: France 4 - 0 Honduras
Biggest upsets, surprise/interesting results (if any): Russia making the quarter finals
Flop of the tournament (can be a team or player): Netherlands

 

Winners: Brasil
Runners Up: Argentina
Third Place: Columbia

Top scorer: Aguero
Player of the tournament: Joe Hart for being the most overworked player in the competition

How far will England reach: Exit at Group Stage finishing 3rd behind Uruguay and Italy
England's stand out player: Joe Hart

Highest scoring result of the tournament: Uruguay 4 - 0 England
Biggest upsets, surprise/interesting results (if any): Columbia reaching Semi Finals
Flop of the tournament (can be a team or player): England & Wayne Rooney

 

have england ever lost a match by a four-goal margin at a major tournament? i think the germany 4-1 game was the biggest going from memory.

can't see even a fully fit suarez dismantling us that easily, let alone a half fit one but i doubt you are the only negative person out there with regards england's prospects

 

I would much rather follow the England Cricketers... Only to discover what a complete mess we are making of batting against Sri Lanka!

 

Winners: Germany
Runners Up: Argentina
Third Place: Chile

Top scorer: Klose
Player of the tournament: Griezmann

How far will England reach: Group
England's stand out player: Rickie Lambert

Surprise package - Chile

No doubt in a few hours this will have been blown out of the water - but i dont think Brazil are the sure fire bet that so many seem to think they are - just got a feeling that whats going on in the country, outside of the football, will have a bigger impact on performances than some think...

 

Here's mine:

Winners: Brazil
Runners Up: Spain(got them in the work sweepstake so hope they'll go one better!)
Third Place: Argentina

Top scorer: Neymar
Player of the tournament: Neymar

How far will England reach: out 3rd in group
England's stand out player: Gary Cahill

Highest scoring result of the tournament: Portugal 5 - 3 Ghana
Biggest upsets, surprise/interesting results (if any): African semi-finalists
Flop of the tournament (can be a team or player): Rooney, again(is it a flop given his previous at major tournaments, or expected?)

Bah!

 

Winners: England
Runners Up: Argentina
Third Place: Brazil

Top scorer: Daniel Sturridge
Player of the tournament: Adam Lallana

How far will England reach: winners
England's stand out player: Raheem Sterling

Highest scoring result of the tournament: England 6-0 Germany
Biggest upsets, surprise/interesting results (if any): Wayne Rooney to score a goal; Roy Hodgson to celebrate each victory with a break dance.
Flop of the tournament (can be a team or player): Ronaldo

pessimism and realism are old hat. Jingoistic optimism for me all the way.

 

I think I'd pay good money to see Roy breakdance!

 

Winners: Brazil
Runners Up: Argentina
Third Place: France
Top scorer: Neymar
Player of the tournament: Neymar

How far will England reach: Group stage
England's stand out player: Wilshere

Highest scoring result of the tournament: Argentina 5 Iran 0
Biggest upsets, surprise/interesting results (if any): Columbia + Russia to reach quarters, Spain to score less than 7 goals all tournament
Flop of the tournament (can be a team or player): Germany, Rooney

 

Referee 2 Croatia 1

If this is going to be the standard of refereeing at the World Cup then I certainly won't bother watching!

 

It seems quite clear that the ref had his orders: Make sure Brazil wins! I don't think there is anything Croatia could have done to get a result.That ref was bent.

 

I couldn't agree more CT

Brazil might as well take the trophy now and save us all the bother!

 

That ref performance was a complete joke. Never seen a performance so inept in game all my life.

Feel sorry for Croatia as they deserved a draw from that game, maybe more. I hate FIFA to the point where I feel rage.

 

Should Neymar have been on the pitch in the first place?

If it had been a premiership game 9 times out of 10 Fred would have been booked for simulation!

It's a shame because it should have been a celebration of football but it has been so heavily weighted towards Brasil it will turn out to be a farce!

 

Hate to say this for the first game of the World Cup, but what a farce, as people have said Ref was inept or paid for (make your own choice), Neymar should have prob gone for the elbow, as he lined him up for it, terrible pen decision, Brazils last goal looked like a foul on the halfway line before that, Croatia have every right to feel really aggrieved at the outcome, as they got shafted big time, anyone tell me what was wrong with their second goal as well ?

 

Is there any reason why anyone thought this was not likely to happen? As suggested above, may as well give Brazil the trophy now.

In a way I am pleased that all the games are screened here with kick off time between 2am and 5am, gives me an excuse to not bother watching this year. I will be content to watch the highlights the following day

 

Well you can see from the name how long I have been following it.I didn't become interested in football until the early 70's.I watched '66 of course as a fourteen year old. '74 and '78 were great but I think we have to acknowledge that the competition has become a second rate X factor.

Last night was sadly about politics.I think that they knew defeat for the hosts would probably have united the protesters and the fans and resulted in large scale rioting.The easy thing to do was allow Brazil to win.Sadly for those who took this course neither Brazil or Croatia helped their cause and they had to resort to blatant match fixing.Is there any point in watching the rest? Probably not.

 

what a load of nonsense. not really sure what everyone is complaining about baring in mind it was just like watching a premier league match!

the major decisions went to the bigger team, in their own stadium. i don't hear too many calls of 'fix' when arsenal get awarded a ludicrous penalty at the emirates in the last minute against norwich for example.

in contrast to the turgid tournament four years ago, i thought it was a good, open game of football. croatia will feel very hard done by but they played well and looked a decent side who should progress. brazil stuttered and spluttered but i think they'll get better as the tournament goes on and they gain a little momentum.

oscar was great i thought, neymar clinical.

i was engrossed, even though i didn't care who won. who doesn't want to see a bit of controversy from time to time? and to be fair to the ref, i thought he was having a good game until the penalty. i didn't think the neymar challenge was a red card, yellow was justified. the croatia goal which was disallowed was a tough decision but refs almost always side with the keeper in those instances.

why moan? a month of wall-to-wall football and everyone moans? sums some people up i suppose. embrace it and enjoy the spectacle. it was a promising start

 

Oscar was quiet initially, but grew into the game and was very good in the second half.

As for Neymar being clinical, HA! Yes he was lively all game (lively, but not overly impressive - much like most of the other Brazil players), but he scuffed the shot for the first goal and Pletikosa should have (and nearly did) save his penalty because he placed it in (statistically proven to be) the very worst part of the goal that you can possibly place a penalty (not to mention doing a stupid stuttering run-up)!

I'm also siding with the majority of the pundits/journos on the 'elbow incident'. It looked premeditated to me, and I wouldn't have berated the ref had Neymar been sent off.

As for the penalty, I'm with Kovac. Extremely soft, and in my opinion, a penalty (in that type of incident) shouldn't be given unless the ref is 100% certain the defender has pulled/pushed to gain a significant advantage. Not easy in the heat of the moment I know, but still.

Entertaining game overall though, yes and I enjoyed the spectacle a lot. But, I reserve the right to moan about some of the refereeing decisions if I want to.