...World Cup Soccer begins this Wednesday, June 10th and ends about a month later with the Championship game, July 12th. I thought it might be fun to give everyone a chance to join a pool, predicting the round winners, and the eventual champion.

...There are 32 countries taking part. In the first round they are divided into eight groups of four. The teams will play each team in their group once, with the top two teams from each section then advancing to the second round. From the second round, right on through to the championship game it's a simple one game knockout. Win, and advance to the next round, or lose and go home. The points awarded for each correct selection are explained lower.

...Everyone is eligible to play along. (One entry per person, please.) You'll need to fill in *31* selections to take you from the first round to the final. (It might be easiest to first make your selections on some paper)

...When conducting a sports pool in RT, usually everyone would kick in $5 or $10, with the money given back as a prize to whoever has the highest point total. We can't do that in VT, so this will be just for fun. smile

...Once you've made your selections, you can send them to me in mailroom, or post them in #r-soccer
Wednesday I'll post a list of all who have entered, and what their predictions are. And at the completion of each round I'll update the point standings. (Round One takes the longest to finish, ending on June 26)

...The deadline for entry is 7am SOI time, Wednesday, June 10th.

Round One
One point for correctly predicting the winner of a group
One point for correctly predicting the second place finisher of a group
Two bonus points per section if both the 1st and 2nd are predicted correctly
One bonus point per section if you correctly pick the top two finishers but have them in inverse order

GROUP A

Brasil Scotland
Morocco Norway

Line 1 Ist place Group A:
Line 2 2nd place Group A:

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GROUP B

Italy Chile
Cameroon Austria

Line 3 Ist place Group B:
Line 4 2nd place Group B:

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GROUP C

France South Africa
Saudi Arabia Denmark

Line 5 Ist place Group C:
Line 6 2nd place Group C:

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GROUP D

Spain Nigeria
Paraguay Bulgaria

Line 7 Ist place Group D:
Line 8 2nd place Group D:

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GROUP E

Netherlands Belgium
South Korea Mexico

Line 9 Ist place Group E:
Line 10 2nd place Group E:

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GROUP F

Germany United States
Yugoslavia Iran

Line 11 Ist place Group F:
Line 12 2nd place Group F:

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GROUP G

Romania Colombia
England Tunisia

Line 13 Ist place Group G:
Line 14 2nd place Group G:

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GROUP H

Argentina Japan
Jamaica Croatia

Line 15 Ist place Group H:
Line 16 2nd place Group H:

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Round Two---Three points awarded for every correct selection.

Line 17 1st place Group A vs 2nd place Group B :

Line 18 1st place Group D vs 2nd place Group C :

Line 19 1st place Group E vs 2nd place Group F :

Line 20 1st place Group H vs 2nd place Group G :

Line 21 1st place Group B vs 2nd place Group A :

Line 22 1st place Group C vs 2nd place Group D :

Line 23 1st place Group F vs 2nd place Group E :

Line 24 1st place Group G vs 2nd place Group H :

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Round Three, Quarterfinals---Five points awarded for every correct slection

Line 25 Winner Line 17 vs Winner Line 18 :

Line 26 Winner Line 19 vs Winner Line 20 :

Line 27 Winner Line 21 vs Winner Line 22 :

Line 28 Winner Line 23 vs Winner Line 24 :

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Round Four--Semifinals---Seven Points awarded for each correct selection

Line 29 Winner Line 25 vs Winner Line 26 :

Line 30 Winner Line 27 vs Winner Line 28 :

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Final Round--Championship Game---10 points awarded for the correct selection

Line 31 Winner Line 29 vs Winner Line 30:

That's it, you're done! Selecting the winning team on every line would give a perfect score of 100. Good luck! Remember, send your selections to me in mailroom or post them at #r-soccer

*Links* In case you want to do a bit of research. Also, clicking on each team listed in Round 1 will send you to that teams homepage.

ESPN's World Cup Soccer 98 pages
Soccernet
Vegas Insider--Read what the experts predict