The 2010 World Cup's upcoming matches are looking a lot less messy, now that many of the long-odds teams such as Australia and New Zealand have been cut from the lineup. A few pundits have noted that figuring out who will go through to the Round of 16 in the World Cup is easy ... as long as you have a Masters Degree in Pure Mathematics! So it will be a relief for those of you who like to enjoy sport without actually having to work your math-muscles, that we are now at the stage of World Cup 2010 where if you win a game, you stay in ... if you lose a game you go out. Simple! Today we check out the matchups for the (mostly!) upcoming Round of 16.
World Cup matches 26th of June
There were no shocks in the first two (already played) matches of the Round of 16 - Uruguay knocked out the Korean Republic 2:1 (who truthfully, did extraordinarily well to get to the Round of 16), and Ghana beat the USA 2:1.
World Cup matches 27th of June
Today we have Germany playing England ... two strong teams, but in the Round of 16 only one can go through. England has a slight advantage in the stats, but their performances in the Knockout stage left a lot to be desired. Argentina also play Mexico in a game that may well end up drawing, as over 40% of these two teams' games have.
World Cup matches 28th of June
Today the Netherlands play Slovakia, and while Holland has much shorter odds to win the entire World Cup, they don't have the best record against the Slovakian team. Brazil will also play Chile, and odds and stats say that it will probably be a clean sweep by Brazil.
World Cup matches 29th of June
If Japan manages to stand up against Paraguay, there'll be a lot of happy punters ... though it isn’t likely! In the main game of the day, Spain has twice as many goals and three times as many match wins as Portugal in their World Cup head-to-head record ... but there have been 12 draws.
Who'll win the 2010 World Cup?
Well, we haven't quite got the Delorien repaired yet to go grab that books of sports results from the future! Neither is Wikipedia obliging publishing such information, though you can find out just about anything else on there. Here are the current bookies odds (and also our best guesses!) on who'll win the 2010 World Cup.
Argentina 5.0 - 6.0
Brazil 4.0 - 4.33
Chile 41.0 - 51.0
England 10.0 - 12.0
Germany 11.0 - 15.0
Ghana 23.0 - 26.0
Holland 7.5 - 8.0
Japan 81.0 - 101.0
Mexico 61.0 - 81.0
Paraguay 34.0 - 46.0
Portugal 21.0 - 23.0
Slovakia 151.0 - 251.0
Spain 5.0 - 5.5
Uruguay 11.0 - 13.0
Tweeter's Cup
A few good ones that we couldn't resist including:
--- sreevass #worldcup has created a record high tweet rate of 3283 tweets/second #omgfacts @omgfacts
--- jelanigreenidge RT @davidlerner75 I think I just heard a vuvuzela being blown in B-natural. Tune that thing! #worldcup Dude that's hilarious.
--- CaptDankMorgan #worldcup .... #usa lost & i hope you're finally happy #fifa officials