On Friday, the first World Cup on the African continent will kick off with 32 teams vying for ultimate glory, even though only a handful have a realistic chance. It will nonetheless be a historic tournament (aren't we saying this every four years?) that will shine the world's cameras and lights on the Republic of South Africa. Let's hope the tournament excites fans with skills and performances on the field, and few distractions off. With that blessing in mind, the most charitable that you may find me to be, let's run down the groups and likely winners. My predictions in no way represent my views or those of my superiors, and confer no liability for possible yet imaginative harms at law, i.e. intentional infliction of emotional distress, abridgment of privileges and immunities of certain countries and their fans...
Group A: Will South Africa's early exit bring some relief from those vuvuzelas? Who will be the French tabloid king, Domenech, Henry, or Ribery?
Group B: Want a sneak peak of Maradona running naked down the streets of Buenos Aires? No thank you. Can Greece's play be the new siesta medicine?
Group C: What's the next round of the taxation without representation Anglo-American feud?
Group D: Can Germany's sterling national social insurance system find a cure for its ailing team?
Group E: Will it be another year of Dutch illusionists looking at the starry night of a lost World Cup?
Group F: Pensioner rights and Medicare lobbyists are looking at their cohorts in Italy. To insure or not?
Group G: Who will emerge from the Group of Death - the best team in the world, the sulky boy and gang, Sven, or the inscrutable yet almost literally bringers of death?
Group H: They are no longer cursed but may still be fragile (e.g. to anyone parking an airplane). Will Spain deceive again, as is likely?
Among the favorites, I cannot pick Argentina because of an unstable coach, nor England because of a dysfunctional team, nor the Netherlands because of their still lack of balance, nor Spain because they will once again fall short. It has to be Brazil: not pretty at all, but solid enough to bag their sixth.
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