How Far Will Your Team Go?

Do you think your team can make it past the first round of the World Cup? Even if it is a weaker team, there is always a chance of this. Just ask Ecuador, Ghana, or Australia, three so called weaker teams finishing second in their respective groups in 2006. Senegal, Paraguay, and Turkey did it in 2002 and Japan won its group.

And then of course there have been some big surprises over the years in the latter rounds. Some examples are South Korea 2 Italy 1; Croatia 3 Germany 0; Bulgaria 2 Germany 1; West Germany 3 Hungary 2; and Uruguay 2 Brazil 1.

However, as explained in our book "World Cup Companion", the final will probably include one of the big four countries of the soccer world: Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany. At least one of these four countries has appeared in every World Cup Final from 1930 to 2006.