For every World Cup since I can remember (and that probably only starts at Mexico ’86), I’ve had a World Cup wall chart. ??And, every 4 years just before the start of the tournament, I write the scores on it. Not the actual scores obviously, but my predictions. I use it to predict the whole tournament, right through to the winner, runner up, and 3rd place team. ??This year is no exception, apart from that I’m writing a blog and thought it would be a good idea to share it around.
It’s very much like one of my regular checks on a Friday afternoon – the ‘Lawro’s Preditictions’ section on the BBC football website. It’s where Match of the Day’s very own ‘ugly Tom Selleck’, ex-Liverpool defender Mark Lawrenson gives us his thoughts on exactly what the scores will be in each of the weekend’s Premier League fixtures. ??It’s been quite a talking point on the Hull City message boards since the start of our two year stint in the Premier League, firstly because Lawro pretty much gets every result wrong in the first half of the season (especially Hull City’s), and then he settles down and annoys everyone by being mostly right after Christmas. ??I expect it’s because many teams are unknown quantities for a couple of months, and then become very predictable, like the Tigers.
The good thing about the World Cup is that there is no post-Christmas bit. Many teams only play 3 games so it’s like trying to predict who will be top of the Prem at the end of September. How hard can it be?
So here goes, here’s my predictions versus the outcome of the first round of group matches, a la Lawro’s Predictions. For ease and lack of imagination, I’ll call this bit ‘Cheese-o’s Predictions‘
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Cheese-o says………………..Actual real-life says
South Africa 1-1 Mexico…….South Africa 1-1 Mexico *
Uruguay 1-3 France………….Uruguay 0-0 France
??
South Korea 3-2 Greece…….South Korea 2-0 Greece
Argentina 3-0 Nigeria………..Argentina 1-0 Nigeria
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England 0-0 USA…………….England 1-1 USA
Algeria 0-1 Slovenia…………Algeria 0-1 Slovenia *
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Serbia 2-1 Ghana…………….Serbia 0-1 Ghana
Germany 2-0 Australia………Germany 4-0 Australia
??
Holland 2-1 Denmark………..Holland 2-0 Denmark
Japan 0-2 Cameroon………..Japan 1-0 Cameroon
Italy 0-0 Paraguay……………Italy 1-1 Paraguay
New Zealand 0-1 Slovakia….New Zealand 1-1 Slovakia
??
Ivory Coast 1-2 Portugal …..Ivory Coast 0-0 Portugal
Brazil 5-0 North Korea………Brazil 2-1 North Korea
??
Honduras 3-4 Chile………….Honduras 0-1 Chile
Spain 2-0 Switzerland………Spain 0-1 Switzerland
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Cheese-o got ten??results right and two perfect scores (*)
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So not great but better than Lawro at the start of last season and better than picking at random. What I noticeably got wrong was the number of goals in many of the games. I sort of expected that there might be a few more than the odd one, but having watched most of the matches so far, all the teams are pretty scared of losing. ??The last two world cups have had overall averages of 2.6 and 2.2 goals per game. Not giving anything away, I totted up my total for all the group games and t turned out to be 2.7! Whoops. Oh well. What I will give away is this… my top four (yes despite recent results) are 1. Spain, 2. Brazil, 3. England, 4. Argentina.??
On we go to round two. Only one match has happened at the time of writing and I so nearly got that right. Uruguay’s last minute third denied me.
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Cheese-o says………………..Actual real-life says
South Africa 0-2 Uruguay
……
South Africa 0-3 Uruguay
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France 0-0 Mexico ??
Argentina 4-1 South Korea
Greece 1-2 Nigeria
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Slovenia 2-2 USA
England 3-0 Algeria
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Germany 0-0 Serbia
Ghana 3-3 Australia
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Holland 5-1 Japan
Cameroon 1-1 Denmark
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Slovakia 1-1 Paraguay
Italy 2-0 New Zealand
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Brazil 3-1 Ivory Coast
Portugal 4-0 North Korea
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Chile 0-0 Switzerland
Spain 4-1 Honduras
??
I’m particularly looking forward to the Ghana vs Australia match. Feel free to cut and paste your predictions into the comments section. I’ll post my third round choices and the results when the time comes.
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DAVE CHEESEMAN 