FIFA World Cup 2014 – Wednesday 02 July 2014

In the office World Cup predictions competition I had the following as the Quarter-Final line-up:

Brazil v England

France v Portugal

Netherlands v Italy

Argentina v Belgium

The reality as we now know after yesterday’s final last sixteen games is:

Brazil v Colombia

France v Germany

Netherlands v Costa Rica

Argentina v Belgium

63% success rate – not bad. However, looking back the selection of England to make it this far was at best blind faith and at worst delusional. It also puts into perspective how well Costa Rica have done in getting this far at the expense of Italy.

Overall the last sixteen games have reflected the tournament’s group fixtures with late drama, goals and open play. There have been exceptions though and Argentina v Switzerland last night only sparked into life in the last five minutes of extra-time. However, there was also a great couple of minutes when the Brazilian fans in the crowd got behind the Swiss with chants of “ole, ole” as they strung together a few passes.

I honestly don’t think there is an obvious favourite to win the competition as all the teams have had some inspirational wins and some when they have looked very, very ordinary.

For me though the word of the last sixteen has been ‘plucky’. The reason being that the ‘big’ sides have emerged over the less fancied teams, but they have all been made to battle hard for a result. So although Chile, Nigeria, Algeria, Mexico, Switzerland and USA have now departed, they have done so with honour intact.