Quick picks

Almost forgot - and I won't have time later... so...

Argentina over Germany - 2-1 Klose gets his last WC goal, thank god.

Ukraine over Italy - Shocker! Italy proves mortal in penalty kicks.

England over Portugal.

Brazil over France.

The rest is easy - Argentina meets Brazil and whups them in the final... like I originally predicted.

Repicking

Just to recap here, there were eight games in the round of 16. Wiggins correctly predicted the outcome of 7 of those games. I had four of them right (somewhat surprisingly, I had one game each day right and one wrong -- weird).

Now that it's all messed up, we're repicking. Fortunately for me, the four games I got right involved my final four teams. So that's pretty good. I guess that means I don't have much to change (but then again, Wiggins had seven games right, so he has 7 of his original final 8 still in it).

Here we go...

Round of 8
Germany over Argentina -- I suppose this is where it gets ugly for me
Italy over Ukraine -- hopefully I won't get a Ukraine train run... eh, nevermind
England over Portugal -- I hope they both lose
Brazil over France -- Ronaldo showed up in round 2, Brazil may be for real, again

Everything the rest of the way is the same as before.

Halfway Through the Round of 16

So we're halfway through the 2nd round. So far, Wiggins is 3-1 with his picks (and he also had the goal differential right in the England - Ecuador game). Mike is 2-2.

I know that I picked Italy over Australia in today's game, but I have to cheer for the Socceroos. That's one of the best team nicknames left in the tournament.

Also, Wiggins is calling for a 4-0 beatdown by Brazil over Ghana later this week. That's probably a reasonable prediction. I sure hope Ghana keeps it closer than that though. If they lose by a goal, that could be on the bigger stories of the tournament. I mean, I'm hoping for a win by Ghana, but that's not going to happen.

Final Waffling

Okay - now my heart is finally completely overwhelming my head.

Last amendment to my picks before the Germany game begins.

I'm taking the Dutch all the way.

Go Oranje!

...of course - all of this will change when ALL of my picks go wrong in this next round...

Time to make Mike look silly

It ain't hard.

Okay - here are the picks -

Germany over Sweden (1-0)
Argentina over Mexico (3-1)
England over Ecuador (2-1)
Netherlands over Portugal (game of the round, decided by penalty kicks)
Italy over Australia (2-0)
Ukraine over Switzerland (2-1, Shevchenko golden goal)
Brazil over Ghana (4-0)
France over Spain (usual Spanish disappointment, 2-1)

Then - (edited - going with my heart now)

Argentina over Germany
Italy over Ukraine
Netherlands over England
Brazil over France

(all great games - wow)

Followed by -

Argentina over Italy
Netherlands over Brazil

Finals -

Argentina over Netherlands.

Can't quite go all the way with my Dutch boys... but having them beat England and Brazil - that's going out on a limb enough, I guess....

I'm gonna feel real stupid if they do win it all, though, and I just didn't have the faith.

(last edit) - I swear I did this before I saw Davies' picks. He only goes against me on the Ukraine pick in the next round, even going so far as to call the penalties in the Netherlands game... weird.

You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose...

... but you can't pick the World Cup better than me. Wiggins is going to attempt to out pick me, but we all know how that will go (even if he does know soccer -- err, football -- better than me).

I don't know much about this, but I'm going to try. I also don't know who all of the teams are yet and I may not get to update my picks once the field is set, so this could get ugly (if I'm way off on who I'm assuming gets into the round of 16, let me know). There's probably too much "chalk" in my pics. In reality, I have no idea what's going to happen, but I'm sure I'm going to enjoy it.

Round of 16
Germany over Sweden
Mexico over Argentina

Italy over Australia
Switzerland over Ukraine/Tunisia

England over Ecuador
Netherlands over Portugal

Brazil over Ghana
Spain over South Korea/France

Round of 8
Germany over Mexico

Italy over Switzerland

England over Netherlands

Brazil over Spain

Semifinals
Germany over Italy

Brazil over England

Finals
Germany over Brazil