One of the sadder realities of humanity is that a single human life rarely involves more than twenty World Cups. Without question, South Africa 2010 has been a memorable one, no matter how you feel about the hornet’s nest noise emanating from your television. As a blog, this is our first go round covering a World Cup, and we look forward to many more. A great reward that accompanied the hard work we’ve put into making this site a reliable, fun and interesting look at the game we love has been the people we’ve met and the friends we’ve made along the way. The US soccer community is a growing community and the blogs and sportswriters that cover this team and the sport in Europe are, I think, worthy of what little portion of the credit belongs to something more than the game itself. We’re fortunate to have met and in many ways have the opportunity to work with some extremely talented, hard-working, fun and passionate people. This piece was an effort to involve some of those folks. With that in mind, we offer predictions on the rest of the tournament, with the lion’s share of the credit going to our very talented friends from The Shin Guardian, Free Beer Movement and of course Keith Hickey of Yanks Are Coming fame but doing fine things at Goal.com. Jason Davis of Match Fit USA and Eric Beard of A Football Report still have open invitations to get in on the action, but Jason is probably busy writing love letters to the vuvuzela or simply running a first-class site, and Eric is doing the same while at the same time being painfully smarter than most all of us.
Onto the picks!!! If you are a “Hup, Holland, Hup” kind of guy or gal—don’t read on…we see a dark future.
Matthew, The Shin Guardian
Quarterfinals:
Uruguay over Ghana
Brazil over Holland
Spain over Paraguay
Argentina over Germany
Semis:
Brazil over Uruguay
Argentina/Spain ??
Golden Ball (Best Player): Luis Fabiano, Brazil
Golden Gloves (Goalie): Iker Casillas, Spain
Keith Hickey, Goal.com
Quarterfinals:
Uruguay over Ghana
Brazil over Holland
Germany over Argentina
Spain over Paraguay
Semifinals:
Brazil over Uruguay
Spain over Germany
FINAL: Spain over Brazil
Third-Place: Germany
Golden Ball: David Villa, Spain
Golden Gloves: Julio Cesar, Brazil
Best Young Player: Mesut Ozil, Germany
Puck, The Yanks Are Coming
Quarterfinals:
Uruguay over Ghana
Brazil over Holland
Spain over Paraguay
Argentina over Germany
Semis:
Brazil over Uruguay
Argentina over Spain
FINAL: Argentina over Brazil
Golden Ball: Leo Messi, Argentina
Golden Gloves: Fernando Muslera, Uruguay
Mister Tuesday, The Shin Guardian
Quarterfinals:
Ghana over Uruguay
Brazil over Holland
Spain over Paraguay
Germany over Argentina
Semifinals:
Brazil over Ghana
Spain over Germany
FINAL: Spain over Brazil
Golden Ball: David Villa, Spain
Silver Ball: Maicon, Brazil
Bronze Ball: Ozil, Germany
Golden Gloves: Richard KIngson, Ghana
Neil W. Blackmon, The Yanks Are Coming
Quarterfinals:
Ghana over Uruguay
Brazil over Holland
Argentina over Germany
Spain over Paraguay
Semifinals:
Brazil over Ghana
Spain over Argentina
FINAL: Brazil over Spain
Golden Ball: Luis Fabiano, Brazil
Silver Ball: David Villa, Spain
Bronze Ball: Leo Messi, Argentina
Golden Gloves: Richard Kingson, Ghana
The Free Beer Movement
Quarterfinals:
We’re going to add these to the comments section… but Free Beer Movement picks there will be. Enjoy.