Its all over and Spain are crowned the new World Champions!
In our previous post we predicted that Brazil would triumph, but failed to spot the rise of Norway as serious contenders. Alex however was nearly correct in terms of the last four, but did not predict that England would finish third and Brazil would lose to Norway. The dice predicted Egypt as champions, but while Egypt did well in the tournament this did not come to pass - but it did correctly predict that France would take fourth place!
For brevity, ignoring the rounds of 32 and 16 we pick up our prediction journey in the quarter finals.
|
Match |
Kevin |
Alex |
Dice |
Actual Score |
|
France v
Morocco |
1-1, 2-0 AET |
2-1 |
1-0 |
2-0 |
|
Spain v
Belgium |
1-0 |
2-2, 1-1 (AET),
6-5 (pens) |
0-0, 5-3 (AET) |
2-1 |
|
Norway v England |
1-1, 0-2 (AET) |
1-2 |
3-5 |
1-1, 0-1 (AET) |
|
Argentina v
Switzerland |
2-1 |
4-0 |
0-2 |
1-1, 2-0 (AET) |
We got the outcome of France v Morocco right overall, and the dice predicted it too! We were similarly correct about Spain v Belgium although the dice predicted fireworks in extra time after a full 0-0 draw. For Norway v England the dice also predicted a thriller in normal time, and we were not very optimistic about Switzerland's chances, but the dice thought they might triumph!
|
Match |
Kevin |
Alex |
Dice |
Actual Score |
|
France v Spain |
2-2, 0-1
(AET) |
1-1, 1-0
(AET) |
3-1 |
0-2 |
|
England v Argentina |
1-1, 3-1
(AET) |
1-1, 0-0, 5-4
(pens) |
1-2 |
1-2 |
Our semi-final predictions were most significant because the dice correctly predicted the England v Argentina outcome. England of course lost, despite the narrowness of the margins and us predicting an England win.
|
Match |
Kevin |
Alex |
Dice |
Actual Score |
|
Spain v
Argentina |
2-1 |
1-2 |
2-3 |
1-0 |
|
France v
England |
1-1, 0-1
(AET) |
2-0 |
6-0 |
4-6 |
The final was interesting. Alex and the dice were optimistic about Argentina's chances, but Kevin correctly predicted that Spain would prevail after only letting in one goal all tournament. We failed to predict a thriller in the bronze match thinking it would be a contractual obligation with a tight scoreline and few open goals, but it turned out to the match of the tournament! The dice similarly predicted a one sided-win for France, but at least with lots of goals.
The biggest ever World Cup will be remebered for some good football, England almost getting to the final but at least succesfully scooping the consolation prize against the heavily favoured French team. The Spanish possession finally prevailed against the cynical Argentinian tactics.
The presentation of the World Cup was more explicitly marketing focused than before. Relevant developments here included the 'hydration breaks' which were perhaps timed to allow for TV advert breaks. This was at least better than the 1970s NASL which cut away to advert breaks mid-action, but did mean that the game was de-facto broken into quarters, something that was feared but failed to materialise for the 1994 edition. Another more subtle addition was the 'star-player cam' which seemed to involve a camera focusing on identified key but not always impacful players, often cutting to them for their reaction after incidents. The extended interval at half-time in the final to accomodate a pop concert was a further departure from usual practice. We await the next FIFA World Cup to see if any of these ideas will be repeated or developed!
