Odds for the favorite teams at the World Cup in Germany 2006

Brazil almost always are the top favorite for the title, even when the actual squad is not as creative, powerful and victorious as in the last months. Almost any bookmaker in the world lists Brazil as the top favorite to win the World Cup title. Most bookmakers offer odds between 3 and 4 for a victory of Brazil in the final in Berlin Olympiastadion on 9th of July.

Argentina is the only other Soutern American nation to win the World Cup after World War II. Once having had Diego Maradona in their team, it didn’t take much additional effort to reach the final of the World Cup two consecutive times. Nowadays, of course, such an outstanding player is missing in the Argentinian team. Nevertheless, and especially because of their tactical discipline they seem to have good chances again.

Italy seem to be the strongest European nation at this time. But with an scandal of manipulation being just recently discovered in the Italian Serie A, this might influence the mental status of many of the squad’s players. Italian judiciary is known to treat manipulators in sports extremely rigorously, just think of how tragically former racing cyclist Pantini ended up or how the Austrian skiing team was treated during last winter Olympics in Italy.

Considering recent results of Germany, it is hard to get why odds are so low for World Cup host country Germany. Bookmakers still thinkt that being the host team of a World Cup automatically puts you in a favorite position. We'll see.

Today England have one of the best teams of the last decades. But also in the 1990s their team was not that bad. Still, they managed to be kicked out of World Cup before the semifinals every time they qualified. As mentioned before on this website, they have an excellent midfield at hand. With Rooney probably not going to participate in the first matches, their chances have been heavily reduced. Seems as if bookmakers haven’t reacted to that change of situation by now. Odds for England still are very low.

Netherlands on level with Portugal, one may find that discussable. Portugal is led by aging former superstar Luis Figo, who already retreated from the national team before he had his comeback in the qualification, whilst the Netherlands seeem to have found a good mixture of older players of the last decade and promising players even from their own, actually only second class, league. Half of the defenders stem from small town club AZ Alkmaar in the north of Holland. However, the Netherlands beat Czech Republic twice and definitely are a likely candidate to win the World Cup title. Odds seem to be adequate for the Netherlands, but much too low for Portugal.