ime for predictions. And since the whole point of blogging is the 
live, spontaneous, real-time immediacy of it, I’ve decided to take 
things to a new level here by disembowelling a chicken and reading its 
entrails while simultaneously blogging about it. OK. Ready? 
Chicken—check. (I got a battery one. I thought organic wasn’t worth the 
expense since it’s not for eating.) Swiss Army knife—check. 
J-cloth—check. Laptop and wireless connection—checkedy-check. Right. 
Hang on. I’ll just...it’s harder than you think with one hand...hold 
still...ouch!...kitchen knife would have been a better idea...actually 
I might need both hands for this...

Right. The entrails...actually, the entrails make a pattern which looks 
oddly like Audrey Tatou. But that’s not important right now. The 
entrails say that history seems to be the best guide to performance in 
World Cups. In the last six Cups, going back to 1982, 11 out of 12 
slots in the final have been contested by just four teams: Brazil, 
Argentina, Germany and Italy. In fact, there has never been a final 
without one of these four teams.

Why? It is interesting and odd that history should be such a powerful 
predictor. It’s been a better predictor than things like form, which 
you’d have thought would be much more useful. So, anyway, the entrails 
say that it will be one of the Big Four that wins—most likely, Brazil, 
the only team to have won outside their own hemisphere, and whose 
players are much more used to European football than was once the case. 
Also, Brazilians I know say this is the best team since 1970.

If you leave out the host countries, and make an exception for the 
great Dutch side of the 70s, the last surprising team to  make the 
final were the Czechoslovaks in Chile in 1962. According to a 
simulation run of Fifa’s official game, as played on an Xbox360, the 
Czechs will get their revenge this time by winning the tournament.
The simulation has Italy and Portugal knocked out in the group stages, 
and England knocked out by Germany in the round of 16. It has nothing 
to say about Rooney’s metatarsal, and nor do the entrails.

Now to clean up. Haruspicy is a messy business

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