Yes, they have an excellent squad this time. Ok, fiscally conservative people may put their money on Belgium to make it to the the semi-final and win third place?

I'm looking at the England squad and the only one with a goalscoring track record is Rooney aka Shrek who has scored 38 goals for his country but has yet to score in the World Cup.

The problem is that there are no longer enough good English players in the Premiership to form a decent International team. As soon as you take out all the foreign talent they are shown up for the useless fat lumps of lard they really are.:nope:

I typed in odds on England winning the world cup into google and a picture of a drain grid came up

What would you call an Englishman in the last 16 of the 2014 World Cup?

A referee.

I saw a link earlier which said - 'Click here to see the players who will end England's World Cup dreams'

So I did...

It brought me straight to Hodgson's team selection on the FA's website.

Roy Hodgson was wheeling his shopping trolley across the supermarket car park when he noticed an old lady struggling with her bags of shopping.
He stopped and asked, “Can you manage dear?”
To which the old lady replied, “No way. You got yourself into this mess, don’t ask me to sort it out!”

I've just seen the England squad for the World cup. And I must say I'm full of confidence for this summers tournament, I've stuck £50 on Brazil to win.

As a Sports commentator once said,

"In the end it will be these 5 countries that will make up to wind the trophy"

I think it still counts. In the Semi's we will see 2-4 of these 5 countries

I guess it Will be

Germany
Brazil
Spain
France
Maybe following countries will make it too

Holland
England
Italy
Argentina

Markus

Add Argentina for sure.

No one mentioning Chile is fraught with danger.
They beat England in a recent friendly and made Germany work hard for their 1:0 win.
South American style Football is both pretty to watch and very hard to tactically combat.

Inbefore you say: 'friendlies don't mean squat'.

In the grand scheme of things friendlies are a good opportunity for the coach to experiment with formations, team changes and blooding new caps.
Friendlies have a psychological factor to them and losing a friendly just before a major competition can affect team dynamics and mental mind sets.

I think Chile will be a dark horse, as much as Portugal will, also don't discount teams like the US and Colombia giving teams a hard time.

31 days to go.

A survey has suggested that a pint of beer could cost as much as £21 in some parts of Brazil during the World Cup.

I'm not going now, there's no way I'll enjoy an England game sober.

FIFA have a rule that the host nation automatically qualifies for the World Cup.

Scotland have applied to host the tournament in 2018, 2022, 2026, 2030, 2034, 2038, 2042...

Test match Germany - Poland a boring 0:0. Not encouraging. Germany's graph definitely points downward since quite some time now, they have not lost, but also not won, and convincing they did not either. 12 newcomers tried - so short before the tournament...!? Not encouraging either.

On Brazil, the tournament promises to become a fiscal and social disaster for Brazil. Not only have hundreds of thousands been relocated by force, but the social tensions due to insane money spent on stadiums (still not ready) while leaving hot burning social conflicts unadressed, will not shrink by this tournament. Today a study got published that shows that Brazil has to expect not the smallest economical benefit from hosting this tournament (which is no surprise, these sports events never hold what they promise).

Außer Spesen nix gewesen. One would imagine the country has much more urgent problems to deal with.