Records exist to be broken…

Actually, Italy was tied by the US in group play, so the record you cite is win or tie, not consecutive victories.

I don’t see any team capable of beating Brazil until they meet Germany in the finals. And I only give Germany equal chances against Brazil because they’re the home team.

Next up is France, and the only reason they beat Spain today was size. The Spaniards field a tiny team (by European standards). I didn’t realize how small they were until seeing them standing next to the French players. France bullied them all over the pitch (which was the correct strategy). While Spain’s ball handling was a thing of beauty, especially early on, it was clear all day that they had no answer to the size problem.

Mark my words: France will be no match for Brazil. Brazil wins 2-0 or 3-1. The reason is that France simply will not be able to physically bully Brazil, and that’s their only real chance against a quality side.

England will get by a decimated Portugal (otherwise I’d pick Portugal). Germany will beat Argentina in a great match. Italy will slide by Ukraine, but it will ugly (lots of fouls and I’ll wager a red card or two comes out).

Germany will handily beat a tired Italy side in one semi-final, and Brazil will destroy England in the other.

The final (Germany vs. Brazil) should be one for the ages! I cannot wait! I just hope both sides are fully manned, with no injuries to any starters and no red cards keeping anyone out. On a neutral field, Brazil wins 7 out of 10 matches against Germany. But Germany at home makes that final match essentially a complete toss-up. Man, I sure hope I’m right about all of this crystal ball gazing!

John, regarding the Italy number, it was just victories - I made a mistake in fact. I wrongfully added their 1st WC 2006 victory (their victory against Ghana) to the count I got on the source articles (7) when I shouldn’t (since they were not on a streak). It’s fixed now (from 8 back to 7).

Posted from  Brazil

I hope your crystal ball is working properly John!!! That would be really great! Sounds reasonable to me!

Well France is a good team but deflated and unmotivated and no real match for us, but the WC’98
blues can come back to haunt us psychologically and maybe be the only changes Perreira should make to the players is their mental state against FRANCE i mean the players we have are more than capable of winning, “we were not playing that well in the WC” some people would feel but opposing teams wanted to make sure that what is on the nike ads wont happen to them and who the hell is playing well except maybe the hosts and everyone wants to give us a good old fashion whooping as to see whether they have chances to win WC…..but we can blame ourselves if we wont win this WC the seventh time including WC ‘78 (that the argies stole).

first os all, i would like to thank all for this blog, and a special thanks for the people updating the brazil blog.

now going back to the topic, i think most people would love to see Brazil lose, because they have the ability to crush any team that stands in their way.
i agree with my fellow citizen John, regrading France, they are not a match for the mighty Brazil, especially after their unconvincing group games…their win against spain isn’t that big of a deal, and frankly i’m happy, because i would like to see them crushed by the selacao…

as for Italy, i think their game against the australian was a bit shacky, and i frankly think that God was in a mood fo a miracle that day, because if the game had went into extra time, knowing that “Guus” had 2 substitutions left, we would have seen a different result.

Obrigado Brazil !!!!!

Posted from  Lebanon

Ha ha haaaaa whaaaaaaaaa ha ha haaaaaa haaaa …. crystal ball…. ha ha haaa

france won. france won. france won! they played very beautifully against brazil, and I think the frenchs deserve to win for that.

Posted from  New Zealand