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Federazione Italiana Gioco Calcio : Italian Federation of Football.

Main players: Fabio Cannavaro (FIFA Player of the Year 2006), Gianluigi Buffon, Gennaro Gattuso. All three players were champions of the World Cup 2006, which indicates that Italy has an aging team; it looks like the Champion of a World Cup tends to keep most players to the next Cup, something which happened to France in 2002 and Brazil in 2006. The only country which managed to win two consecutive Cups, keeping the same team basis (with older players), was Brazil, winner of 1958 and 1962.

FIFA ranking (April  2010): #5

Italy finished first of their group in the European Qualifying for the World Cup 2010, ahead of Ireland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Montenegro and Georgia.

Italy is in Group F of the World Cup 2010, and will play the first three matches against Paraguay (June 14th), New Zealand (June 20th) and Slovakia (June 24th).

Italy players for World Cup 2010:

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus), Morgan De Sanctis (Napoli), Federico Marchetti (Cagliari), Salvatore Sirigu (Palermo).

Defense: Salvatore Bocchetti (Genoa), Leonardo Bonucci (Bari), Fabio Cannavaro (Juventus), Mattia Cassani (Palermo), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Domenico Criscito (Genoa), Fabio Grosso (Juventus), Christian Maggio (Napoli), Gianluca Zambrotta (Milan).

Midfield: Mauro Camoranesi (Juventus), Antonio Candreva (Juventus), Andrea Cossu (Cagliari), Daniele De Rossi (Roma), Gennaro Gattuso (Milan), Claudio Marchisio (Juventus), Riccardo Montolivo (Fiorentina), Angelo Palombo (Sampdoria), Simone Pepe (Udinese), Andrea Pirlo (Milan).

Forward: Marco Borriello (Milan), Antonio Di Natale (Udinese), Alberto Gilardino (Fiorentina), Vincenzo Iaquinta (Juventus), Giampaolo Pazzini (Sampdoria), Fabio Quagliarella (Napoli), Giuseppe Rossi (Villarreal).

Coach: Marcelo Lippi; these words of his: best players don’t always make up the best team could very well have been said by Brazilian coach Dunga.

What can happen after this first stage?

In the 2006 World Cup, six of the eight seeds finished first in the groups stage. The two seeds which failed were Mexico (outdone by Portugal) and France (who couldn’t beat South Korea and were outperformed by Switzerland). So, it’s quite a good assumption that most seed countries finish first in their groups.

Let’s make the assumption that France will finish first in group A (the seed of his group is South Africa, but just because they are the host country – France is clearly superior; in 2006, the host which became seed was Germany, which clearly deserved it), and all other seeds finish first in the other groups.

So, the leaders of the groups stage would be, from 1A to 1H: France, Argentina, England, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Brazil and Spain.

If this happens, and given the match schedule above, in the round of 16 Brazil would play against the 2nd of group H, probably Switzerland or Chile.

If all the seeds get past this round of 16, we would have the following matches in the quarter-finals: France x England, Netherlands x Brazil, Argentina x Germany, Italy x Spain.

If Brazil wins Netherlands, then the next match would be against France or England in the semi-final, and the final match would be Brazil against Argentina, Germany, Italy or Spain.

However, Brazil is said to be in the Group of Death, which means that there are plausible chances that we finish 2nd in the group. If that happens, the situation changes completely.

Brazil and Spain, the two main favorites to win the World Cup, would face each other very early in the tournament, right after the group stage (one of these teams would go home three rounds before the final). If Brazil wins, then next would probably be Italy in the quarter-finals, Argentina or Germany in the semi-finals and the final would be against France, England, Netherlands or Portugal.

The quarter-finals, semi-finals and final matches comprise a total of 13 matches, which will sure be very thrilling.

Now that the Qualifying is over and all countries to participate in World Cup 2010 are defined, it’s time to start talk about bettings, odds, and favorites to win the World Cup.

FIFA just announced the ranking of the best countries in the year so far. Do betters agree with FIFA?

The table below shows who are favourites, according to betters of Ladbrokes, the most traditional betting house in England (table is online today, November 23rd; bets are accepted till December 4th).

According to them, Spain is the main favorite to win the World Cup, with odds of 4:1 (betters make US$ 4 for each US$ 1 they bet). Brazil is second, with slightly higher odds of 9:2 (or 4.5:1). Other relevant candidates to winning are, in order: England, Argentina, Germany, Italy, Holland, Portugal and France. Countries with the highest odds (not shown in the table above) are North Korea (350:1), Honduras and New Zealand (both with 500:1).

Below, the current betting odds at William Hill, one of the major houses in the United States. Among the top ten favorites, the only difference between Americans and British betters is at 8th and 9th position, where France and Portugal switch positions.

Below, the odds at Sports Betting, another major American house; also, no change among the top favorites:

A few remarks about these odds: all but one ex-champions are among the favorites (the only exception is Uruguay); Spain, the top favorite so far (Spain is also favorite according to other parties, such as Goal and Eurosport), is top of the FIFA rankings, current European champion, and qualified to the Cup winning ten out of ten matches (in a group which included also Turkey, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Estonia and Armenia); Brazil, as usual, is among the top favorites (not surprisingly, as Brazil finished first in the Qualifying, with three rounds in advance); Argentina had a very difficult time to secure a slot in the Cup, but also, as usual, ranks among the favorites.

How accurate are these odds? In 2006, the absolute favorite was Brazil, but the team failed long before the finals; the same happened in 2002, when France was favorite, and in 1998, when Argentina was favorite.

The History of World Cups show that not always the favorite wins, and one of the “usual suspects” take the title.

The following countries will play the finals of the World Cup 2010:

South Africa: host country, only pre-qualified country (until 1994 2002 – rectified, thanks to the commenter who pointed the mistake – the previous winner was also qualified  - France, winner of 1998, was the last one to benefit from this).

From Africa: Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon.

From Asia/Oceania: Japan, Australia, North Korea, South Korea, New Zealand.

From North and Central America: Honduras, USA and Mexico.

From Europe: Netherlands, Spain, England, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Serbia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Portugal, Slovenia, Greece, France.

From South America: Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

In World Cup finals, Brazil has already played against: Cameroon (1994), Algeria (1978), Japan (2006), New Zealand (1982), Australia (2006), USA (1994), Netherlands (1974, 1994, 1998), Spain (1934, 1950, 1978, 1986), England (1958, 1970, 2002), Italy (1938, 1970, 1978, 1982, 1994), Germany (1974, 2002), Switzerland (1950), Denmark (1998), Portugal (1966), France (1958, 1986, 1998, 2006), Mexico (1950, 1954, 1962), Chile (1962, 1998), Argentina (1974, 1978, 1982, 1990)  and Uruguay (1950, 1970).

Brazil also played against Yugoslavia (1930, 1950, 1954, 1974) and the Czech Republic (1938, 1962 and 1970), which later would  split and give origin to Serbia, Slovenia and Slovakia. Considering also these split-ups, none of the countries is making a first appearance in the World Cups finals.

All previous World Champions will be in South Africa. Also, all major football countries will be there, (see this comparison between countries in the Cup versus FIFA rankings).

The 32 teams will be divided into eight groups; the draw will occur on December 4th 2009. The draw will be conducted in such a way that all groups will have stronger, strong, weak and weaker countries (as per FIFA judgment).

After the draw, this blog will recall past performances of Brazil against their first three adversaries.