World Cup - into the second round

The first round of the World Cup is over. 16 teams have gone home; 16 teams remain. The USA is still playing. the next round starts tomorrow, so it's time to check our pre-tournament predictions, which you can see here. .. Championship Game : Brazil vs. Germany Germany lost a game, but they were playing a man short. They still finished first in their section. They have to play England next, and to get to the finals, they'd have to beat Argentina. That's a tough road, but hey, it could happen. I'm sticking with this one. . . 3rd-4th Place Game : Spain vs. Portugal This game will happen, but not for 3rd/4th. They play each other next, so I have to replace one of them in my prediction. Spain still hasn't impressed me, but they won their group. Portugal tied Brazil today, but neither team was making an effort. They also smashed North Korea 7-0. In browsing the brackets, I'm going to revise this to be Portugal vs. Uruguay. . USA's Performance & USA vs. England. I predicted the USA would still be in it and they are. I predicted they'd lose to England, and they tied, thanks mainly to a horrible gaffe by the English goalkeeper. My updated prediction for our next game is : USA 2 - Ghana 1. After that, we'll face Uruguay and lose, maybe 2-0. We'll be bummed, but actually, it will be quite a successful showing if we get that far. . Best Never-to-Happen Match-Up & Upset African Victory South Korea surprisingly made it to the second round, but North Korea is gone. It was not meant to be. I predicted Cameroon 2 - Netherlands 1; it turned out just the opposite. The game was tied for while, but Cameroon was never really in the game, and ended up losing all three of their matches. African teams did horribly here; the closest thing you could call an upset was South Africa tying Mexico. .Two Over-Performing Teams : Uruguay and Mexico. Right as rain on this one. They both are still in the tournament. The only thing I'm changing here is for Uruguay to go further than Mexico. BTW, most over-performing Continent is South America. Five teams; fifteen games so far. Overall record : 10 wins, 4 draws, 1 loss. All five teams advanced. Fab-u-loso!

Two Under-Performing Teams : France & Argentina

Dead right about France; dead wrong about Argentina. Maradona is awesome. I'll be cheering for the USA tomorrow, of course. But overall I cheer for every team. It's been a great tournament so far, and it's only gonna get better.