Hi guys! It's me! :D It's been a while!

So the 2014 FIFA world cup is now only 5 days away, starting Thursday at 20:00GMT in Brazil, the opening game being Brazil vs. Croatia. I'm a football fan, and I love big tournamanets, and I'm sure I'm not the only one of us.

I created a game to predict the world cup and have been trialing it. I thought it was a good system, and that I could create a competetion out of it. I thought some of you guys might be interested.

DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST, THE PREDICTOR WILL NOT BE RUN ON THIS FORUM

The thread will now operate as a general disscusion for the tournament.

How to play:

Download the FIFA world cup predictor, it's a spreadsheet done in excel.

Fill it out, starting with the group stages When you've finished filling out a group, right click on the points column table and sort it. Excel doesn't sort them automatically (at least I can't find a way to). If you need to sort by goal difference as well, under sort, use custom sort and click the add level button to add a second sort

This updates the knockout stages. Fill these out too. If you think a knockout games is going to be decided on penalties, put a 'p' in the end column. If you predict a draw and don't select penalties, the top team goes through by default (hence Brazil are champions if everything is blank)

When you're happy with your predictions, upload it and send it to me via PM. You have until the first game starts on Thursday night to send me your predictions

Scoring & Leagues:

A score table can be found here, so you can see what you will be scoring per game. Points are scored for group game results and predicting progress of the teams. Tables should be updated every day/ every other day dependant on my availabilty (it's exam season after all).

You will not only be competeing against others from the forums, but against people from different forums. A league will be run for this forum, interest provided, but you may find yourself up against people you don't know. It all adds to the fun

I also thought the thread could double as a discussion thread for all things world cup, not just the predictor.

Have Fun!

Tommig

P.S. Bullet points don't work?

Cool! Would like to see that!

My best guess is Brazil. They've got home advantage and it's rare that a European team wins outside of Europe, so unless Argentina pull off something incredible, it has to be Brazil, surely?

The only time that's happened in the World Cup's history, when Brazil didn't exactly have a great side. They look a lot stronger this time and it's in South America.

@greymatter (View Post)

 There've been far too many injuries already. I hope the football is clean. And yeah. I agree that those 4 are the top 4. Don't discount teams like Uraguay (although -Suarez is a blow), Belgium and Switzerland who may throw up an upset or 2.