World Cup 2010

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England will win World Cup, say JPM analysts

Statisticians at JPMorgan have applied the investment bank's in-house quantitative analysis techniques to the world of football...and concluded Fabio Capello's England will emerge victorious in South Africa this summer.

Matthew Burgess and Marco Dion used models usually reserved for evaluating and predicting stock performance to assess the chances of the 32 teams competing for football's greatest prize.

They used data including historical Fifa rankings, results and bookmakers' odds.

According to Burgess and Dion, the final will be contested between current European champions Spain and England on 11 July, with England triumphant. Holland take third place, according to the analysis.

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Hmmm ... http://www.bmwland.co.uk/talker/images/smiles/hmm.gif

Lies, damned lies and what?

Fuck it. It's worth a tenner.

Amen to that Tim.

Anyone see the Japan match?

I missed it - just got the live feed from the Beeb website on my phone as I was at a family lunch, so all I gathered was that both England's goals were scored by Japan. :o

Pretty poor performance from England?

It does sound like Japan's goalie was a bit of a hero though.

Capello makes his final choices.

England's 23-man squad for the World Cup finals:

Goalkeepers: Joe Hart (Manchester City), David James (Portsmouth), Robert Green (West Ham).

Defenders: Jamie Carragher (Liverpool), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), Ledley King (Tottenham), John Terry (Chelsea), Matthew Upson (West Ham), Stephen Warnock (Aston Villa).

Midfielders: Gareth Barry (Manchester City), Michael Carrick (Manchester United), Joe Cole (Chelsea), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Aaron Lennon (Tottenham), James Milner (Aston Villa), Shaun Wright-Phillips (Manchester City).

Forwards: Peter Crouch (Tottenham), Jermain Defoe (Tottenham), Emile Heskey (Aston Villa), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United).

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Obvious omission is Theo Walcott. Out of form due to injuries this season, unfortunately.

Shame about Walcott

England won't win because they're England. They'll gack it up at some point.

My money is on Brazil. In fact it always is, because they're always the most fun to watch, and they always should win. And if not for lame-ass officials allowing brutalization of offensive players, the always would win. :o

I don't see any real favourites this time. Which is good. Argentina has the handicap of having a loony coach but I'm hoping to see at least some Messi magic. The Dutch have been training on a fast passing game and it really worked well tonight. Saw a squad who enjoyed the game and played rather brilliantly at times.

Haven't really seen Brazil play for years. Are they as dominant still?

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Originally Posted by ']['ear

England won't win because they're England. They'll gack it up at some point.

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Every streak has to start and end. Spain won something like 35 games in a row recently, and that run ended.

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My money is on Brazil. In fact it always is, because they're always the most fun to watch, and they always should win. And if not for lame-ass officials allowing brutalization of offensive players, the always would win. :o

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Except, with old captain and defender Dunga at the helm brazil are playing staidly and stolidly and are pointedly avoiding the flashy, glitzy football for which they are famous.

A system which just might prove you right about them winning again. The obvious choice is Spain, but they do have some crucial injuries. Not enough crucial injuries, in my opinion. You would still pretty much take every one of their starting line up over englands, rooney, and cole aside perhaps.

Argentina will probably be the team you want to watch if you liked the old brazil. Incredible attacking players with flair and talent, let off the leash by a probably not very good coach in Maradona, and a not exactly brilliant defence.

My dark horses for this world cup are the dutch. RVP seems to have come back to fitness without much ill-effect, and the rest of the team looks either excellent or at least very solid.

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Originally Posted by Spawnie

Argentina will probably be the team you want to watch if you liked the old brazil. Incredible attacking players with flair and talent, let off the leash by a probably not very good coach in Maradona, and a not exactly brilliant defence.

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No team coached by Maradona can reach its maximum potential.

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My dark horses for this world cup are the dutch. RVP seems to have come back to fitness without much ill-effect, and the rest of the team looks either excellent or at least very solid.

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Typical for the Dutch. They won't live up to it.

That I agree with.

We'll play brilliantly until 1d4+2 games into the tournament. Then shit hits the fan and beers hit the television.

edit: No screw that. We will kick arse and we won't choke this time!


No I'm not just trying to convince myself! :mad:

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Originally Posted by ']['ear

Typical for the Dutch. They won't live up to it.

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Tch. The way you spin it, man united would have won this years champions league, premier league and FA cup, since what happened before is always what happens next time in sport, right?

Right?

Latest odds at William Hill

Spain 4/1
Brazil 4/1
Argentina 13/2
England 13/2
Holland 9/1
Germany 14/1
Italy 16/1
France 18/1
Portugal 25/1


England still seems too high.
And surprised Portugal is down there.

All this talk of the Dutchies being dark horses. Anyone gonna put their dollars where their mouth is?

Yeah, I'll be buying and drinking lots of beer for this one.

Hey, the Dutch have always been one of my favorite Euro sides. I'll cheer for them if it's not against Brazil.

Why not cheer for the US, you might ask? Why should I? 1) I didn't grow up with a team to cheer, 2) there is no tradition of enthusiasm for them in this country, and 3) their style only moderately appeals to me. Why should I change the habits of a lifetime? I'm not particularly nationalistic, so that won't do it. So I only cheer for the US against teams I have no affinity for.

Still some truth in what you said. See last European Championship. Played very well against Italy France and Romania and choked against Russia.
WC before that, the red en yellow card bonanza against portugal.
Euro 2004 was a change when we were simply outplayed.
WC2002 missed twelve hundred penalties against Italy (2 in game) while dominating them, and lost in the penalty shoot out (surprise!)

etc, etc :)

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. The Dutch usually play great ball, but then drop the ball. As it were.

Portugal to be fair havent looked that great.

Personally i would swap the odds for england and italy.

Anyone have any idea what could be giving england such short odds?

Actually cant believe france and italys odds are so close. After the way france have been playing recently i wouldnt be half surprised if one of the better up-and-coming teams knocked them off that top ten list.

Edit - actually, anyone think that should it be spain vs brazil in the final (likely, if they dont meet beforehand) it will play out much as barcelona vs inter milan did in the champs league?

I'm actually going to miss the first Ingurland game as I'll be on one of those nifty flying doohickies, which is a bit of a kick in the gonads.

Still, I'm not has optimistic and hopefull about this World Cup as I was about the last two. I don't know whether the eventual expectation of constant disappointment and failure has finally set it, or whether it's just Capello's annoying habbit of never sticking with a winning team (and so giving the players a chance to be a -team-), but something doesn't feel right about the team. We're lacking that "world class" feel that I thought we had 4 years ago.

Looks like David James is our number 1, which also makes me glum.

And as much as I dig Peter Crouch, I would have loved to see a second world class striker partner Rooneylad. Pity we dont' have one. . .

Oh well, let's hope I'm prooved utterly wrong :D

Well as Switzerland wont make it over the group stage, I will cheer for the Dutch.

Socceroo's to play Germany on the 14th June - I'll be in Saigon drinking 333 and watching it on the telly.

I can't see the boys doing very well in our group but I hope they can make a good show of it against the Deutschenkrauts. :up:

Robben is out with an injury, might not make it at all :(

In the friendly against Hungary he was brought in the second half and played very well. 5 minutes before the end misstepped and is out with a hamstring which will take a couple of weeks to recover. One the one hand, he's only one guy and there's plenty of very capable substitutes. On the other, his form was incredible and he will be missed, if only for the enjoyment of watching him play.

Here's hoping he'll be fit for some of the finals when we reach them. I wonder what it'll do when he hasn't got the rhythm of playing games.

Bummer.

Yep I saw Robben was out. Bit of a blow for you lot.

You have a fair few top players, but Robben will be missed for sure. Hamstrings can be tricky, recovery is not very predicatable.

Update: Injury was less severe than believed at first, he'll be out at least a week, but will come to South-Africa.

If we get to the final stages, he'll be there :) Hopefully he can play at least one game in the group stages to get some rhythm.

'S good. :up:

We lost the England captain Rio Ferdinand to a knee injury in training. He is fairly central to our defence. Has flown home from SA and a replacement - Michael Dawson - has flown out. :|

Cripes, the captain and your best defenceman (arguably). Damn, that is a blow.

Lets hope someone else gets injured and Theo goes :mad:.

Apparently (I don't speak the language), the Argentina technical director has promised that "If Argentina win the World Cup I’ll let whoever scores the winning goal do me up the arse.”

Maradonna being in charge is going to be interesting ...