Predictions are needed for the Semis please before Tuesday:

Tue Jul 6	19:30	Cape Town	URUGUAY			HOLLAND
Wed Jul 7	19:30	Durban	GERMANY			SPAIN

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The final 2 group games today saw the Argies get stuffed - Glad I got to watch Maradonna getting some form of payback for 24 years ago - Not that I'm still bitter or anything! :-) plus Spain got a terrible 1:0 victory. No-one got the German result correct and only 3 got the Spain game spot on. This means that Ben has a 7 point lead over Julie and Myself (although Julie is in second on the games predicted correctly rule). Sarah is not too far back and, in my opinion, anyone down to about 13th could still realistically get some prize money.

1st	Ben1 Group D	59
2nd	JulieH Group E	52
3rd	Rangey Group E	52
4th	Sarah Group E	50
5th	Richard Group H	48
6th	Robin Group C	48
7th	Matt Group D	48
8th	Dale Group G	46
9th	Thomas Group G	46
10th	JackG Group G	45
11th	Marc Group C	44
12th	Ben1 Group E	44
13th	Pat Group D	44
14th	Steph Group E	43
15th	Ann Marie Group C	42
16th	Linda Group B	42
17th	Russ Group A	41
18th	Bob Group H	40
19th	JackB Group C	40
20th	Ryan Group G	40
21st	MatthewG Group C	39
22nd	JackB Group G	38
23rd	JackB Group D	38
24th	Sarah Group H	37
25th	Sarah Group F	36
26th	Pat Group F	34
27th	Ryan Group F	34
28th	Jag2 Group A	33
29th	Dale Group A	32
30th	Ed Group B	32
31st	Oliver Group B	32

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The Ghana game saw people lose out with their last minute penalty miss and leaves the table as follows with only 6 more games to go in the tournament

After the Brazil game, 3 of us got the score correct, Ben, Myself and Dale. This means that Ben extends his lead at the top but Dale and I boost our chances - Dale has jumped up from 14th to 6th

I now need your predictions for the Quarter Finals please (before the kick off on Friday and Saturday.

The matches are :

After the 0:0 bore draw this afternoon, not a lot changed with Dale being the only one getting the score correct.

The Spain Portugal match was more interesting and now the table looks like this :

Whoops! I put yesterdays Holland game in as 2:0 instead of 2:1 (despite knowing it was 2:1 as well). So, it actually changed the table to what I published. It should have looked like this :

Myself and 6 others were happy with the 94th minute penalty for Slovakia - It meant we got maximum points - But 7 others must have been cursing as they had gone for 2:0 - For Robin it would have meant a return to the top - Sorry to rub it in Rob! :-)

After the Brazil game  Robin is back on top of the pack and the full table is below.

Well after the last game, Ben takes a 1 point lead over Robin but it's still anyones competition to win.

Well what a letdown that was from England - But not if you are Ben, as he has now gone top of the table - Maybe the positions will change again after the Argentina match later as Robin and Julie are only 1 point behind with 9th still less than a top score of going top.

I now need another prediction from you for the quarter finals :

Well, it's tight in the table now - After the 2:1 victory to Uruguay, 8 people got the result correct and I moved to the top of the table on 26 points.

24th Place has 20 points so 1 correct prediction at the minute could mean anyone going top.

After the USA Ghana match, 5 people correctly predicted a 2:1 victory to the Africans and Robin goes back to the top of the table with a 2 point gap over Julie and Ben

Here is the table

These are the 8 games that now need predicting please before they kick off. Its the score at the end of 120 minutes (if extra time is played). You can ignore penalty shootouts.

Here are my scores for the knockout stages (so you know I'm not cheating!) :-)

Group H sees 3 people qualifying - Sarah (with her 3rd team to qualify, Richard and Bob.  Full table below

Group G sees Ryan, Thomas, Dale, JackG and JackB all qualifying - Amy and David lose out at the last minute in this group - Full table below

Of the qualifiers so far, here is how the table will stand at the start of the knockout stages.

REMEMBER - IF YOUR NAME IS IN THE TABLE BELOW SEND ME YOUR PREDICTIONS FOR THE KNOCKOUT ROUNDS ASAP PLEASE.

If you have qualified more than once, please make it clear to me which of your teams the predictions are for, otherwise I will assume they are the same for all your entries.

I have made a mess of some of the scores - I've just noticed that some scores were for wrong groups - Having now sorted it, everyone who had already qualified for the knockout round has still done so BUT, you may have a different amount of points - This applies to groups C, D, E and F  

PLUS, JackB is an extra qualifier from Group D.

So, now I've got the spreadsheet working again, group F was the first set of matches today. RYAN, PAT and SARAH all qualify for the 2nd round although this was a low scoring group so PAT and SARAH will start rom the bottom of the playoff stage.

Group E was higher scoring with Rangey, JulieH, Steph, Sarah and Ben1 all qualifying

A decent performance by England today and now onto the Germans on Sunday - Cant wait.

In group C, The top 3 before todays games all stay there and are joined by 2 others in joint 3rd qualifying for the knockout stages,

Robin, JackB, Ann Marie, Marc and MatthewG are the ones moving on.

In Group D, Thomas lost out on qualifying to Pat, with Benn1 and Matt also making it in 1st and 2nd (plus JackB)

Group B is now complete - Myself and Amy have been removed from 2nd and 3rd positions and taking the top 3 spots are : Ed, Linda and Oliver - Just goes to show that's its a lottery, when a 6 year old with no football knowledge whatsoever can qualify for the next round - His first thought was to ask if he could keep any winnings!

As stated earlier, now the knockout matches are taking shape, please let me know your predictions asap for those of you who have qualified.

Group A has now finished and no real change at thee top, other than Russ winning it by getting the Mexico score correct, Jag2 knocked Jag1 out of the top 3 with Dale qualifying in 2nd. Just missing out were Ben and Ann Marie. This was quite a low scoring group overall

In the next few days I will e-mail everyone with the new fixtures if they have qualified, but in the meantime if you know you have finished in the top 3 of a group, let me have the next round scores ASAP please.

Group A Final Positions

Just a quick update tonight - In group G, Ed has been knocked out of 3rd by David and JackG while in group H, Robin leads the way with 5 others qualifying on 12 points at the moment.

Tomorrow sees the final group games in Groups A and B and we will know our first definite qualifiers for the knockout games. As it stands at the moment, these are who would qualify

Paraguay to finish above Italy in the group - Bet you could have got good ons on that at the start of the tournament! 4 of you got the result correct and because this is a low scoring group, it moves Ann Marie, Pat, Sarah and Matthew Joule right up into the qualifying positions, although the Italy Match in a moment may change all that............................. and what a surprise there, with no-one thinking it would be 1:1 but this doesn't change the top positions either.

Brazils' victory saw 8 people getting the correct result and Ryan, Amy and Ed, head the table, at least until the 4th group game tomorrow.

A much better day of football and as you can see below 16 correct results from the 3 games today - Holland proved impossible to predict though.

So, in group D, Matt, Ben and Thomas lead the way

In group E, myself and JulieH lead with my other team and Nick in joint 3rd.

What a poor day for England - Still, it's pure knockout football for them from here on in - They just need to get their act together.

Back onto our competition and out of the 3 games yesterday, there were only 2 correct scores out of 140 guesses! Shoddy all round :-)

Here are the results today - nobody expected France to lose 2 nil, but I bet most found it funny that they did!  5 people got the Greece result spot on while only 2 got the 4:1 win for the Argentineans correct.

The group A result didn't see any place changes from yesterday but in group B, Linda takes over the lead with 14 points overall while myself and Amy also are in the top 3

For fear of getting repetitive, some very unusual results again today

As you can see apart from the 9 of you getting the first match correct, no-one else got any more spot on scores.  So at the half way stage of group A,

lead with 10 points each with only Marc still not off nil points in this group

Yesterdays games were once again very unpredictable, with only Ryan getting the NZ score spot on - He now has a maximum 12 points in that group!  Portugals 0:0 score only had Amy and Russ gaining 6 points, while Brazils rubbish performance against the North Koreans meant that Ryan again was the only person spot on.  This means that group F's leader has 2 points but 3rd in the table only has 2, so it is still wide open.

Today is the start of the 2nd round when things will begin to take a bit more shape in qualifying for the next round.

Latest tables and spreadsheet are at the bottom of this page.

I've now moved the old ramblings to the old news page (link in the header above)

Well those last 2 games  were difficult to predict with only 1 spot on result for both the italy game and the Japan match.  The Dutch one was slightlier easier with 8 people getting the 2:0 result.  

This means that Nick, Jag2,Sarah and Bob all head group E while with only 1 match played in group F, Ryan leads with the only correct result - everyone else has 1 point or less!

No one got the Germany score correct whilst 3 got the Ghana victory spot on. So after the opening games in Group D, Ryan and Matt are leading with Ben1 in 3rd position

Well 5 of you correctly predicted a 1:1 England result., Combined with the 1:0 win for Slovenia Ann Marie tops group C (table below) on 9 points with Richard 2nd on 8, 7 other people are in 3rd on 7 points.

I hope to update group D later after the Germany Australia match.

The 2 0 win for South Korea saw only 2 spot on results with Steph and DaveD getting the correct scoreline.

The Argentina Nigeria 1 0 result was even worse, nobody got it spot on.

The table for group B after the opening two games can be seen below and Steph, DaveD, Oliver and Linda all currently occupying qualifying spots for the 2nd round.

Now then, a big win for England this evening would be nice........................

 A couple of corrections to last night - The spreadsheet isn't behaving fully at the moment - DaveD has moved up in group A - His score actually belonged to David - Hopefully just a few teething problems.  Also Russ got his predictions submitted in time and he also had a good group A result in the first game.

So, the first games of group A are complete and the opening game saw 8 people correctly predict a 1:1 result in the S Africa Mexico game.

The 2nd game was less successful with only Jag1 getting the 0:0 scoreline right.

After these 2 opening games in group A, Jag2 MatthewG, Dale and Jag1 all top the table on 7 points. (full table below)

We have 40 competitors in the competition so the cash is now worth winning :-)

First update will now be Friday evening. Updates will be put here hopefully on a daily basis during the competition.