The Real World Cup

...and then there were 8...or more appropriately for this audience, the elite 8. With Spain's victory this afternoon, the field has been set for the final 7 (not counting the third place match) games. For those who haven't followed the World Cup closely in the past, this is when the real tournament begins. Now are when the big boys come out to play.

Some interesting patterns have developed when looking at the brackets. With the exception of Ghana, every other fixture is South America versus Europe. If it weren't for a poor showing by England, it could have very well been all 4 matchups. Additionally, all group winners have advanced to the final 8 except 1...again, Ghana is involved (USA). From what I've heard, it's the first time 7 of the 8 group winners have advanced (i.e. it's the highest number of group winners ever). With the exception of Italy and England, all of the seeded (i.e. the top ranked) countries have advanced. Conspiracy theorists start your engines. If by some chance all 4 South American teams win, we'll not only have one continent represented in the final four, but it'll be a backyard brawl. The 4 countries (Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay) are only separated by about 200 miles (you could draw a 200 mile line on the map and go through all 4 countries). That should be interesting. From the start, I picked Brazil to win the World Cup and it's looking pretty good so far. At the very least, they should make it out of their bracket and be in the final. Reason: they are the only country left that doesn't have horizontal stripes on their flag. If that isn't a sure sign they are going to win, I don't know what is.

I did some quick math, and thanks to some high scoring games we're only seeing the lowest scoring World Cup by 0.01 goals per game now. Whether or not this will be a memorable Cup will be decided in the next 12 days though. No one will really remember much of what's happened up to this point a few years from now. This is when it all really begins.