World Cup 2022: El GOAT

In the end, it could only be this. Messi, the past decade's candidate for greatest of all time, against Mbappé, the coming decade's candidate for greatest of all time. Messi scored once and helped create a second, and we thought that was that. Then, with ten minutes left in the game, Mbappé conjured a couple of pieces of magic to take the game to extra time. Messi scored again to win it, once and for all, but at the death Argentine nerves frayed and gave France a penalty, which Mbappé scored to take the game to penalties. And even the shootout was a thriller, as pretty much all of them have been this World Cup: France first (Mbappé, of course), then Argentina (Messi, of course), then two misses from France and three scores from Argentina...

And the cup's been won by a non-European team for the first time in 20 years. At the same time, we got a classic match, probably the first good final in... certainly as long as I've been watching football. And the first final-game hat-trick since 1966, scored by (who else?) Mbappé.

I had slightly mixed feelings going into this match, since both teams' talismanic players are employed by Paris St-Germain, which is owned by Qatar, which is, of course, the host. Whichever team won, it'd be a propaganda/soft power win for Qatar. At the same time, you could forget the background for a moment, the unhinged speeches and hollow justifications from various functionaries of the game, and just enjoy two teams playing really good football.

Did Qatar put on a good show? Yes, I think they did. The venues weren't exactly full, but it seems like things ran as they should. People had a good time, the venues were easy to reach and there weren't any instances of hooligan violence that I read or heard about (you assume the Guardian and whatever other outlets would cover it). This also might be unpopular to say, but I actually appreciate how Qatar stood up to FIFA and the sponsors and said that, no, you wouldn't be able to buy beer in the stadia after all.

Does any of that invalidate the abuses of workers that enabled this World Cup to take place? No, those worker deaths and the obfuscation and double-speak around them will remain a black mark on FIFA and the game in general. Other countries are culpable too, not least Russia, which bookended its hosting in 2018 with two separate attacks on Ukraine and has also passed law after law criminalizing the "promotion" of LGBTQ lifestyles. People have highlighted homophobic chanting in Mexico, and the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US, but none of those things invalidates the criticism of Qatar doing it, at least as long as reporters and NGOs note when other countries are doing bad stuff.

Some numbers

Turning briefly to the numbers, I've put the final touches on my spreadsheet looking at how the Western European teams have done against the rest of the world. In 2006, Western European teams took 2.59 points from their matches against the rest of the world, which remains the highest average this century (this counts penalty shootouts as draws, but games won in extra time are counted as regular wins or losses). For comparison, in 2022 they took 1.66 points per game against the rest of the world, which is actually the second lowest total, after 2002, which was also the last time a South American team won the tournament and the last time an African team went on a run past the round of 16.

That's for all Western European teams, so the likes of Wales or Belgium or Denmark, who didn't make it out of the group stage, are dragging the average down. If we look at the performance of the 5 big Western European countries - England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain - then they took 1.85 points per game against the rest of the world, which is actually the third-highest in this same period since 2002. The only tournaments where they did better were 2006, when Italy met France in the final, and 2018, when France won and England got to the semifinal.

What's impressive is that these numbers have been improving since the nadir of 2010, when they got 1.63 points per game, especially when you consider that in that period at least one of the big five has always failed to progress from the group stage. It's even more impressive when you consider that Italy hasn't even qualified for the last two World Cups. So really it's only four big teams posting these numbers, and getting better against the rest of the world since 2010. 

That seems to be a confirmation of Soccernomics's argument that the Western European football networks are helping the region dominate. They are home to the biggest, richest leagues, as well as France, which doesn't have an amazing league but which does create world class players who ply their trade in Spain and England, and less importantly in Italy and Germany (I say less importantly because the two biggest leagues are clearly the Premier League and the Primera Liga).

Colonialism vs multiculturalism

This point about the strength of the networks raises another point, about the makeup of these teams. I've seen a few people on social media talk about how these big Western European teams do well only because of colonialism. It's a persuasive argument, especially when you consider that certain French players were born in overseas departments, or have their ancestry from there. Those overseas departments may be officially part of France, but that's just colonialism too, since it means France hasn't let go of them in four or five centuries.

The other way of looking at it, though, is that these players of African or Caribbean or Middle Eastern descent demonstrate the strength of multiculturalism. French right-wing nationalists complain when the French team wins (seriously) because there are so many "black-blanc-beurre" players; at the same time, England's black players get horrific abuse on social media when they miss penalties, and also when their white colleagues miss penalties (Bukayo Saka got abused for England losing to France, even though Harry Kane missed the penalty that would have kept them in the game). But it's actually a good thing that these national teams are selecting the strongest players they can, regardless of skin color or how "French" or "English" or "German" their names are.

I think we can agree that the worst of both worlds would be for, say, France to maintain these overseas colonies, but to deny their residents, who pay French taxes, speak French and use the same currency as Metropolitan France, the opportunity to represent their country in football?

It gets more complicated when you consider the multiracial makeup of the other big Western European countries. Bukayo Saka is of Nigerian descent, but Nigeria isn't part of the United Kingdom, just of the Commonwealth. In contrast to other independent members of the Commonwealth, its currency doesn't have the English monarch (and I say that deliberately). Yet Saka was born in England and came up through its academy system, and represents his adopted country at the highest level. There are clearly colonial links, but as I say, it speaks to the willingness of the football authorities in England to look for talent outside of the traditional groups that provided players.

Most big Western European teams have opened up their selections to non-white players, both from former colonies and from immigrant populations. The big exception, however, is Italy. There have been a couple of notable exceptions, like Mario Balotelli and Moise Kean, but the first black player selected by the Italian national team was Fabio Liverani, hardly a household name, and he was only called up in 2001, long after France and England were well-integrated.

I don't think Italy's lack of multicultural players is the main or only reason why it's had so much trouble at the World Cup since 2006. It has, after all, reached two European Championship finals and won one of them, and has generally done much better at that level than in the World Cup. But Italian society is changing, with the aging of the society and the lack of opportunities driving young Italians abroad, while the country's position in the Mediterranean makes it the first port of call for many refugees and migrants. Saying that welcoming in these migrants will help in football may seem silly, but if that's the way to show Italians that people of color can benefit their society, then I think it's an avenue to explore.

Is Messi the GOAT?

I'm not even going to try to segue smoothly from that section to this, even though Lionel Messi is a migrant twice over: once when his Italian forebears came to Argentina and again when he moved to Spain to receive treatment for his hormone deficiency and to develop his footballing skills. 

But the question of whether Messi is the greatest of all time has been bandied about a lot this tournament, since it's probably his last. I don't know if winning this tournament cements that status for him, because he's associated more with his time at Barcelona, where he won everything he could possibly win and dominated Spanish football alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid. I wonder if winning this tournament, where he's no longer at the otherworldly heights he occupied in the previous decade, really puts him on the same level as Pele or Maradona or Zidane, who are (at least in my mind) associated more as World Cup all-time greats.

On the other hand, Messi is such a cultural force because of football that it would be odd if he'd only ever been a nearly-man footnote to the tournament, like George Best or Zlatan Ibrahimović or other great players who never won or like Best, even qualified. Winning this tournament doesn't necessarily make him the greatest player who ever lived, but it makes sure he's in the conversation.

These arguments apply to Cristiano Ronaldo, by the way. He's never won a World Cup, and now he never will, at least as a player, but he was just as much of a cultural force as Messi. You can appeal to numbers as much as you want: goals, goals per game, league titles, etc. Each has also won their regional tournament, but winning the 2022 World Cup certainly gives Messi a leg up on Ronaldo.

But what does it mean to be the greatest? Pele is the player most people think of, especially if they don't know anything else about football. He was involved in two World Cup wins, including when he came out of retirement in 1970 to play as part of possibly the greatest team the game has ever seen. Yet Ronaldo and Messi (and Neymar, and Ronaldo o fenomeno) have all surpassed certain of Pele's achievements, like international goals, appearances or career goals.

The point about everyone knowing about Pele points to another way of looking at this "greatest" debate, specifically influence. Pele became the face of football for decades, including the 1970s and 1980s' North American Soccer League, which was the previous big shot at selling soccer to American viewers before MLS. But I think the most influential player ever was Johan Cruyff, even despite (or because of) never winning the World Cup.

Cruyff became the game's biggest thinker, along with his manager Rinus Michels, and the two took the concept of Total Football from the Netherlands to Barcelona, from where it grew into the big tactical innovations in the game. This is all an abbreviated version, and to get the full picture of how tactics developed you should read Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson and Zonal Marking by Michael Cox. But the basic point is, without Cruyff you don't get Barcelona (the concept thereof), and without Barcelona you don't get Messi.

What's next?

What's immediately next is a return to the regular season, which was interrupted by this World Cup. It seems less important than these big national questions, but it will be interesting to see how the English Premier League develops now, especially since we'll see what happens with Erling Braut Haaland, possibly the world's best player of the moment who wasn't in Qatar. Will he help Manchester City win the Champions League, or will that prize continue to elude the Gulf petrostates' teams?

At the international level, next summer we'll have the Women's World Cup, where we'll see how the rest of the world has caught up to the US. The team of 2019 may not be at the same level as last time, so will they refresh or get overtaken by other, upcoming powers?

The year after that is Euro 2024, which remains my second favorite tournament. My hope is that Italy will do well again there, and that England's progress under Gareth Southgate will also continue. Having now seen Croatia reach its second World Cup semifinal in a row, I'm also curious how they and the rest of the Eastern European teams will develop. That will depend on how well they get integrated into the existing networks around the Big 5 leagues, of course.

And finally, World Cup 2026 will mark the tournament's return to North America, the first time it'll be held here since 1994 and, really, the beginning of the modern era of football and of the World Cup. It feels a little like over-egging the pudding to hold it in three countries, all of them large enough to host a tournament on their own, especially given how 2022 was effectively held in one city. But FIFA and the media's need for spectacle is insatiable, and holding it across the US, Mexico and Canada means bringing the show to a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise get to watch it. I, for one, would like to go to matches if I'm in the US.

Anyway, that's the end of this World Cup. It's been a problematic one, but in truth, aren't they all? Without discounting the human cost, in lives lost and in dictators propped up and in corruption enabled, the fact that the World Cup comes every four years like (almost) clockwork, is a way to take stock of my life and where I am. I watched my first World Cup final in 1994 on summer vacation in Italy, and I know where I was for every single tournament since. It's given me a lot of exciting moments, like Germany's 7-1 demolition of Brazil to Italy beating France on penalties in 2006 just a month after I'd moved back to London for my first job post-grad school.

It's my favorite sporting event, and I hope to enjoy it for a long time to come. I just hope it gets less shady, and I hope Italy comes back to it.

World Cup 2022: Equal Parts Surprising and Standard

Here we come to the sharp end of the tournament, as the quarterfinals give way to the semifinals. I managed to get all four of my predictions for this round wrong: some were understandable, like Argentina beating the Netherlands or France beating England. Others were less expected, like Croatia battling back against Brazil to win on penalties, or Morocco seeing off Portugal after having beaten Spain. It's been a tournament of upsets and surprises, and it's probably been better for it, especially since this is the first time since 2002 that three different continents/confederations are represented in the semifinals.

Here are some thoughts on what's happened and on what it all means.

Brazil and Neymar

The joke on the Guardian podcast is about how Croatia just don't tire out, but I think this result shows rather that they don't know when they're beaten. I actually missed most of the match, given that it started early on a work day for me, but I did catch the penalty shootout, which was epic - not a comedy of errors like Japan v Croatia or Spain v Morocco, but a nervy and riveting affair that showcased some fine penalty technique. I might have different feelings if I'd been watching a team I cared about, but I've really enjoyed the penalty shootouts this tournament.

As far as Brazil, I've been considering two things since yesterday. The first is what it means that everyone seems to make Brazil their favorites before a tournament but then Brazil always implodes before the final, sometimes in spectacular fashion. In my review of the 2014 Mineirazo I noted that there's never a good reason to assume that the Netherlands will implode, but they always do. The same can now be said of Brazil: it doesn't seem to matter how much talent they stack in their squad, they always come to grief in the quarterfinal (apart from 2014, when they were at home). A lot of commentators and Twitter gadflies note that this is the fifth time Brazil goes out to European opponents but that's nothing special: almost everyone gets beaten by Europe these days. I'm assuming 2026 will feature the same expectations but the same ending for the world's most successful team.

The second thing I've been thinking about is Neymar. Writing in the Guardian Barney Ronay has a good column about what this latest defeat means for him, and he paints a good picture of the emptiness at the heart of the whole Neymar project, not least the way the player attracts derision. For me, the takeaway is that all the hoopla surrounding Neymar has obscured, for me, what should have been a generational talent but has instead become an object of ridicule for all his diving and theatrics. He's tied for international goals with Pelé, but none of that will matter when we look back at this era, because for whatever reason he was just never fully there at the World Cup. Love the player or hate him, but that strikes me as a shame.

That Wout Weghorst brace

I don't have any grand philosophical pronouncements about this match. All I can say is that when the Netherlands equalized in the last minute of added time in the second half, with, of all things, a pass into the wall instead of a free kick... well, I laughed so, so hard. It's just a shame that the Dutch couldn't capitalize on that good work by actually winning the extra time or penalties. Still, it means that Lionel Messi is still in play for this tournament, which spares us anguished disquisitions on how another generational talent hasn't lived up to his best.

Though Argentina shouldn't be writing off Croatia here, because otherwise in twenty years we'll be talking about what an amazing player Luka Modric was (or, you know, maybe he'll still be playing).

Can anyone stop Morocco?

There are two parts to this one, but let's start by giving credit where it's due: this is an amazing run by Morocco, and I'm increasingly hoping they'll get to continue. My head says France will put an end to them in the semifinal, as they did against the rampant Iceland team of 2016, but my heart is looking forward to a Croatia-Morocco rematch in the final.

Now, on to Portugal, and another figure that everyone wants to see fail. Much was made of the scenes of Cristiano Ronaldo weeping as he left the stadium after the match, and like Neymar, I'm tempted to revel in his tears. But like Neymar, the antics and the general weirdness (because make no mistake, Ronaldo is extremely and abidingly weird) obscure a raw talent that bestrode the world of football for a decade, as well as a ferocious will to power that's taken him from an impoverished childhood on Madeira to becoming one of the world's most recognizable people. If I like anything about Ronaldo, it's that will to succeed, and it's a little sad to see that glittering career come to an end this way. But I'm glad it came against Morocco, who've captured the imaginations of football fans everywhere, rather than in another sterile contest against another world's best, Kylian Mbappé.

England's coming home

And now we come to the end. I was most disappointed by this result, because I've felt that this is the first England team in years that I could feel good about supporting. Ever since I moved to Britain I've had a complicated relationship with the England team, since they seemed to be more about satisfying their own sponsors and egos than playing well. Part of this, of course, isn't the players' fault: they were let down by a conservative footballing culture, from the FA on down to the way talent is developed, that continued to act as though footballing success was owed to them because they invented the game in the year Dot.

At the same time, David Beckham represented an early version of the Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr, Kylian Mbappé phenomenon. His talent seemed to take a backseat to his endorsements and his marketability, which likely had something to do with why his then-manager at Manchester United kicked a boot at his head and then sold him off to Real Madrid. All I'll say is that, like Ronaldo and Neymar, this tournament has left Beckham's brand a bit in tatters, though this time because of his shilling for the Qatari regime.

So what's so different about this England team? None of them is a bigger star than the team: Harry Kane seems to be more of the retiring type, while the one player I can think of who's done anything noteworthy off the pitch is Marcus Rashford, for his campaign to ensure that underprivileged kids continued to get access to school meals during the pandemic lockdowns. You can't imagine David Beckham, Wayne Rooney or John Terry making similar, selfless actions (which may be unfair, but there you go).

They've also represented a different vision of England during these years post-Brexit. Since that vote, the country's gotten smaller and meaner and poorer, with an elected class that seems more interest in triggering the libs than actually coming up with meaningful policy (you can make this accusation to an extent about Keir Starmer's Labour Party, too, btw). The England men's team, on the other hand, has continued to take a knee before matches and has pushed back against bad-faith pronouncements by some of the Tories' most unpresentable elements, like Priti Patel. 

This has all come from the top, from Gareth Southgate, who came up from the youth teams and drew inspiration from other sports for training, conditioning and man-management, and who's been quietly but firmly resolute about pushing back against the worst impulses of Britain's leaders. He may not be the tactical genius that would bring England the greatest trophy, but you can argue that a national team job isn't the place for that anyway: there's a reason José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola have stayed in club management.

All I'm saying is, Southgate has taken the England men's team far, in terms of results and maturity, and while he'll need to give way someday, I think the English footballing establishment should consider carefully what he's brought to the team, and not undo all his good work.

World Cup 2022: Surprises Continue

The round of 16 is done, and up until this morning I thought the surprises were all behind us, but along comes Morocco, knocking out Spain and flying the flag for the rest of the world, i.e. countries outside Europe and South America. Of course, that obscures how close Japan came as well... if only they had more practice at penalties...

It feels a long time ago now, but the Netherlands-USA match was just three days ago, on Saturday. I'm left with mixed feelings, because it felt about right for the team, but I was still disappointed by the manner in which they went out.

Every time the World Cup has been held outside Europe, the US has managed to progress from the group stage, and this time was no different. Home field advantage dragged the team further than it really ought to have gone in 1994, when the tournament was held in the US, but I'd say that in the last decade or so, enough good players have come out of the US to justify saying that the team should consider reaching the round of 16 to be the expectation every four years.

That said, it was clear even in the group stage that this team isn't yet up to the level it should be. I think that because I follow so much British football content, it was easy to get swept up in thinking that Wales would be good, when the fact is that their team was composed of a few very good players and a few who play in England's League Two, aka the fourth division of English football. Not only that, the good players don't get regular play: Joe Allen was out injured for much of the season in progress when the World Cup started, and Gareth Bale is more used as an impact sub these days, even now that he plays in MLS. 

So the USA's first failure was not winning that match: first, by giving up that penalty that allowed Wales to equalize, and secondly, by trying to defend their 1-0 lead rather than pushing for a second goal. This tendency was in evidence against Iran as well, so that they ended that match with a nervy finish that could have gone wrong if Iran's finishing had been more clinical.

I've heard a lot of praise for the USA's midfield, and they certainly did their share of running. I also think Sergiño Dest had a good group stage, marauding up and down the wing against Wales and Iran in particular. But I think the team's finishing in front of goal was poor, and the defense always felt one step from calamity - as demonstrated when Walker Zimmerman gifted Wales that penalty.

Watching them against the Dutch, what struck me was how easy the Dutch made it all look on Saturday morning. I hadn't watched as many of the Dutch games, but the sense was that they hadn't quite moved into gear. Well, my sense on Saturday was that the Dutch didn't need to move out of first gear to beat the USA.

This is in marked contrast to the more frenetic pace of the Argentina-Australia match later that morning. Argentina won by a smaller margin, and Australia's goal provided less of a sense of comeback (although if Kuol had scored that would have been nuts) than the USA's goal against the Netherlands. But then the Netherlands just went straight to the other end and pulled back another, killing the match, while Argentina surely was glad to hear the final whistle. The only game that looked as straightforward, at least after 30 minutes or so, was England v Senegal.

There's not much to say about most of the other matches in this round. Valiant as South Korea were, they got hammered by Brazil; Poland also showed a bit more grit against France, only to fall; Japan did well to hold Croatia to 0-0 but were let down by naivety in penalties; and Switzerland looked bereft of ideas against Portugal, as if they didn't know what to do with themselves after having beaten Serbia.

The Morocco-Spain result is the one wild card here, since Spain started the tournament with that statement win over Costa Rica. But Spain then drew against a lackluster Germany and lost to Japan, so it's clear they had weaknesses. And these huge wins don't always translate into victory at the World Cup. What's funny to me is how bad they were at the penalty shootout - Morocco's keeper looked so relaxed and in control that his team has to have studied Spanish penalties in-depth. 

After all this, I still think the English and the Dutch will meet in the final. On the "left" side of the bracket, I'm pretty confident the Dutch can get past Argentina, who look nervy, and they're the team best-placed to expose whatever weaknesses Brazil have (no disrespect to Croatia, but I don't know if they have enough to beat Brazil). Though of the two South American teams, I'd expect Brazil to have the better chance of beating the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, England will have their toughest match against France, but I think they're solid enough to hold the French off - even 538 and ESPN have England as slight favorites. The team is still basically the one that got to the Euro 2020 final last year, and that could have won, so I do fancy their chances, even against a particularly on-fire Mbappe and Griezmann and co.

Whichever of them wins will most likely beat the winner of Portugal-Morocco, whom I expect to be Portugal, at least as long as they start Ramos in place of Ronaldo. I don't know that I'm glad to have written off both Messi and Ronaldo in the quarterfinals like this, but I just don't see either Portugal or Argentina getting to the final, so no fairy tale endings for them.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with myself for two whole days without football...

World Cup 2022: On to the Knockout Stage

Well, we're on to phase 2 of the World Cup, and the point where things get serious. There's no round-robins, no scraping through based on goal difference or fair play, just straight knockouts with the specter of penalty shootouts hanging over everything.

I don't know if I can rule whether it's been a good tournament yet, because the scheduling has meant that I haven't managed to watch that many games. On the second day I tried getting up for the England-Iran match, which would have been thrilling except that it was 5am and I had to go back to bed after the first half. I've also missed most of the 8am kickoffs, to say nothing of the 7am ones in this final phase of the group stage.

What I can say is that there's been a lot of drama so far, especially in the later groups. It wasn't a stretch to say that the Dutch would win Group A, for example, or that England would do well in Group B. But all of the African teams have had unexpectedly good tournaments so far, even if most of them went out in the first round. The same can be said of the Asian teams, given that half of that contingent qualified for the knockout stage, which is more than ever before. Especially on the last day, most of them had good results that left them in the running to qualify for the knockouts, which doesn't usually happen. It'll be interesting to see how Australia, Japan and South Korea perform, as well as Senegal and Morocco.

Predictions Update

On that note, might as well have a look at how my predictions turned out, right? Of the eight groups, I got only three completely correct: Netherlands and Senegal from Group A, England and USA from Group B, Brazil and Switzerland from Group G. The only group I got completely wrong was Group D: I predicted Denmark and Tunisia would go through, but instead it was France and Australia.

It's curious, but like everyone else in the world I assumed Denmark would replicate their form from Euro 2020 last year. As the group stage went on without any good performances from them, it became a running joke about them being dark horses, but of course, it's easy to be critical in hindsight. I can't speak for anyone at the Guardian Football Daily/Weekly, but I think I underestimated the way that Christian Eriksen's cardiac arrest pulled the team together, probably masking the weaknesses of a team that's probably not that skillful to begin with.

I also ruled out Australia because I thought they were too old and not populated with enough Europe-based players. This will likely tell against them in the next match, against Argentina, but then, they haven't been exactly imperious yet either. 

Where's the Dominance?

Then again, nobody's been imperious in the group stage. This is the first tournament this century (I can't be bothered to check any further back) where every team has dropped points in the first stage. In previous World Cups there's always been at least a couple of teams that won all three of their games, sometimes as many as five, but not this year. Indeed, five of the first-placed teams in the groups actually lost a match, compared with none in 2002.

It's a much-loved statistic that Spain in 2010 is the only team to have won the World Cup after losing its opening match. As far as I can tell, they and West Germany in 1954 are the only ones to have won after losing a match at all. That's not an iron law, much as I hate to admit it, so it's fair to say that the front runners remain Brazil, France and Argentina, all of whom have lost a match. But if we were to take them out of the running, who does that leave us with?

The Netherlands, England, USA, Morocco and Croatia are the only teams that haven't lost yet. Since the Netherlands and the USA face one another in the round of 16, that record will end for at least one of them, but the rest aren't scheduled to meet until the semi-finals, assuming they all get there. It seems unlikely, of course, but it underscores how odd this World Cup has turned out.

That said, I think we'll start to see results returning to normal as we go deeper into the tournament, which also implies another win for a Western European team. The technical ability of the core UEFA sides will probably tell, even against the likes of Brazil and Argentina, even as Neymar returns from injury for Brazil. If we assume a bias toward Western European teams, then the best-placed teams to get to the final are, in my opinion, the Netherlands and England

Both have a good mix of experience and youthful athleticism, as well as not being reliant on one or two notable players. This is in contrast to Portugal and Argentina, and to a lesser extent Brazil, who boast a dazzling array of talent even without Neymar. But all three of these teams, plus Spain, have shown that they can be got, whereas the Netherlands and England haven't yet.

Maybe I'll be wrong. We've demonstrated that I'm not exactly Nostradamus, what with my initial (and not entirely unfounded) prediction of France's early exit. But if we presume that history has any bearing on performance, then my current guess is that England will beat the Netherlands in this World Cup.

Or it'll be Morocco! Who knows anymore?