So, we have trundled through the groups, we have decided who is going to qualify for the knockout stages but who is going to progress all the way to the Final. Well let’s find out.

If you have followed our group analysis, you will know who the qualifiers are and this is how they will match up in the “Round of the last 16″

Mexico v Nigeria

England v Germany

Holland v Italy

Brazil v Chile

Argentina v France

Serbia v USA

Paraguay v Cameroon

Spain v Portugal

You will see from that lot that there are quite a few tasty little ties. We shall go through them all now to find out our Quarter Finalists.

More on World Cup 2010 – The Knockout Stages

Now that world cup fever is truly beginning to take hold, I thought I would stoke the fires further by seeing whether traders might learn anything from the history of the competition.

The usual ‘health warning’ applies, in the sense that performance in the past is no guarantee of future performance, especially when we look back over a number of years.  Yet all World Cup competitions do hold some things in common, most obviously that it is a cup competition involving the best nations in world football over a comparatively short period of time.  In that sense perhaps the old adage that ‘anything can happen’ also holds true.  But are there any discernible patterns?

In this article I will look at what would have happened had you employed a favourite backing strategy involving laying off at the semi-final stage.  Although it has quite often been the case that a number of teams are expected to have a chance of winning, there usually emerges one team who are either marginal or clear favourites.

Let’s start with every England fan’s favourite tournament:

England 1966. Winner: England.   Brazil would have been massive favourites for this competition having won the preceding 2 tournaments in spectacular fashion.  Yet they got knocked out in the group stage.  Their performance was so bad in the tournament that to this day Pele refers to it as “Brazil’s disaster”.  Result of Strategy: YOU LOSE!

Mexico 1970.  Winner: Brazil. It may come as a surprise to some that many people regarded England as marginal favourites over Brazil.  Certainly there is now fairly wide agreement that the 1970 England squad was actually better than the one which won in 1966.  Of course this time it was England that fluffed their lines, throwing away a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2 to West Germany in extra-time of the Quarter Final.  The result was blamed by conspiracy theorists on the deliberate food poisoning of Gordon Banks who had to pull out shortly before the game, but either way this was a disaster and it’s possible to argue that England failed to qualify for 1974 partly as a result of the fall-out.   Result of Strategy: YOU LOSE!

West Germany 1974.  Winner: West Germany. West Germany came into this as European champions and were expected to do well.  Brazil were a pale shadow of the team that won in 1970.  In the end those that backed the home side would have been laughing all the way to the bank, though they did have a few wobbles on the way, notably when half the team almost quit over a wage dispute and when they promptly lost to their ‘other half’,  East Germany.  Result of Strategy: YOU WIN!

More on World Cup Strategy: A Lesson From History, Part 1