die reine Spekulation, corrected!
14 June 2006, 21:04
The pools are in! Thirty-two of you entered the contest. Over here at the World Cup Newsletter we are busy tabulating your entries, assessing your chances, cursing your future, & c.
Defending champion Patrick Murphy went with defending champions Brazil. And so did everybody else. Fifteen of you picked Ronaldinho and crew to bring home their second consecutive Jules Rimet trophy, and six others have the Brazilians losing in the final. Italy and Argentina were the other hot picks.
Sweden snuck into a couple finals, Ghana into one (Good luck, Emily), and impressive-looking Spain into a few others. A lot of you thought the hosts would make it far, but no one bet the farm on them (except Maximino, see correction below). Ben McGrath wins the out-on-a-limb award for taking Paraguay all the way. Viva Paraguay!
Here are your (corrected) projected champions with second-place choices in parentheses.
Brazil
Steve McClure (Sweden)
Damien C. (Argentina)
Marshall Hopkins (Germany)
Austinho (Argentina)
Michael Stevens (Netherlands)
Pat Murphy (Germany)
Laura “Loors” Kelley (Germany)
Ryan Coll (Netherlands)
Monk (France)
Robert Daniele (Germany)
Enzo DiNubile (Argentina)
William Martinez (Argentina)
Fabian (France)
Rory Murphy (Argentina)
Italy
William Dantona (Brazil)
Emily Richards (Ghana)
Grady (Brazil)
Brian Schwartz (Sweden)
Austin Kelley (Czech Republic)
Mike Riccio (Argentina)
Joe “Tze” Kelley (Spain)
Jim “Don’t call me Jan” Koller (Brazil)
Argentina
Willing Davidson (Germany)
Joseph T. “Kell” Kelley (Spain)
“Matthew” “Cow” “McCohen” (Brazil)
Sophia Kelley (Brazil)
Cressida Leyshon (Brazil)
England
Edward “EJ” Murphy (Argentina)
Cullen “EJ, Jr.” Murphy (Germany)
Netherlands
Tyson Smith (Brazil)
Paraguay
Ben McGrath (Czech Republic)
Mexico
Steve C (Italy)
Germany
Maximino Gomez (Brazil)
Correction: The statisticians at The World Cup Newsletter are, it seems, human. Despite what it says above, only fourteen of you picked Brazil. Maximino Gomez predicts that the hosts will beat the defending champs in the final. Apologies.
Correction#2: There was one late entry that did not make it into the initial tabulations. Cressida Leyshon, consigning England to ignoble quarterfinal defeat, picked Argentina over Brazil in the final.
Comments
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The four Argentina fans are looking pretty good. They looked unstoppable against Serbia. The one fan of Paraguay is not looking so good. They are out.
— Austin · 16 June 2006, 10:54 · #
A correction: The current trophy is no longer called Jules Rimet. Brazil got the only Jules Rimet trophy in 1970, its third win. The FIFA World Cup rules until that year spelled that the trophy would be passed from champion to champion until a country won it three times, at which time that country would earn the right to keep it for good. 1974 saw the first appearance of a new design and a change of rules: Now every four years the World Cup champion keeps the actual trophy, made especially for that particular tournament, and a new one is minted for the following cup.
— Liege · 21 June 2006, 23:57 · #