Bernice said:
2006: Italy, then France, then Germany
Who are they that do not credit historians with a sense of humour - and seership!
What say you for this year?
Well, the bad weather will win. It will be (likely) cold. Players used to bad weather are preferred - Germany, Netherlands. Sweden would make a good show, Finnland and Russia ... but they did't survive the qualification.
Uruguay has it's chances, as their country has the same latitude, they came from winter to winter and likely had not too much problems with acclimatisation. But Uruguay is low and a lot of places in South Africa are high.
Spain was just the best team the last two years, so they are also between the last 4 ... with difficulties. They lost against Switzerland, a country with much mountains and they needed some luck to find the goal recently against Paraguay. It's actually not "their country". Anyway, they are brave fighters.
A lot of the South African people are of Dutch descent. Netherlands has a "home game".
Well, all behave wise ... nobody loves to be the favorite ...
... they take their opponents serious and with respect ...
That's good and so it shall be.
The ball will be (probably) almost round and 11 men at each side will not be interested, that it will cross the line of the own goal.
Some billions onlookers will be interested to see some goals ...