Spain crowned the champions of South Africa 2010
The World Cup is over, and the countdown to Brazil 2014 has already started, but before pointing all the focus back to the domestic leagues, here’s a good opportunity to take a look back on what the experts, aka us, thought and predicted before the start of the biggest sport event on the planet in our World Cup guide:
Let’s start from the top, and Spain were indeed our pick to win it all, although we got some of their rivals wrong along the way, as the following direct quote from our article, dated early June, shows: “1st in Group H. World Champions (beat Portugal in the last 16, Italy in the quarters, Argentina in the semis and Brazil in the finals)”. They did top group H, and beat Portugal in the round of 16, but we didn’t predict Germany’s run, neither did we think that the Netherlands could pull off a shock result against Brazil, despite giving coach Van Marwijk a lot of credit in our article: “Coach Van Marwijk may not be a big name, but he’s doing a fine job sustaining the peace and quiet, and the Orangemen will once again begin their World Cup tournament with high expectations”. All in all a nice job, don’t you think?
As for our top two teams from each group to qualify for the second round? Well, we have to be honest and admit defeat: we got only 9 out of the 16, nailing only Group G with Brazil first and Portugal second, but failing miserably in the others, by picking France, Slovenia, Nigeria, Serbia, Denmark, Italy and Switzerland to go through, and all of course packed their bags early allowing them to start their summer vacations prematurely.
We did get some of the key players right: in a team packed with stars such as the Netherlands we said that goalkeeper Stekelenburg will be a key man, and a good performance by him make the difference, and he was indeed tough to beat, instilling confidence in his defence as the tournament progressed. We also cited Luis Suarez from Uruguay as one of the young stars of this WC, but failed, as did their teams, when we said players such as Jozy Altidore from the USA and Matias Fernandez from Chile would shine.
To sum up, you could learn few things from our guide, and choose what to do with this information, let it show you the way but don’t take it as gospel. So our aims were achieved: to shed some light on the unfamiliar journey that was South Africa 2010, letting everyone make of it whatever they wished to. We hope you enjoyed the World Cup as much as we did and all that remains is to wonder who’s going to win in 2014?
Tags: Brazil 2014, South Africa 2010, World Cup