It’s nearly all over! At Manchester City they think it’s already all over and it is now! At Manchester United they just have to put the finishing touches to the season by beating little old Chelsea in the FA Cup final. They can’t let their neighbours get awaywith two trophies and not pick up anything!
Then there’s them there scousers! They may be good enough to beat serial Champion’s League winners Real Madrid and pick up another European trophy as yet another year with no league title goes by. How many is it now?
Anyway, the point being that the two biggest rivals may both end the season with significant silverware so it would be churlish of United to win nothing.
Over in Spain the La Liga trophy is going to Barcelona again and in Germany the Bundesliga was won years ago by Bayern Münich.
France tried, and failed, to come up with some competition for their big club, PSG who picked up the Ligue 1 title whilst Italy saw the closest run contest of Europe’s big five leagues with Juventus lording it over Napoli by a mere six points.
So, apart from a couple of cup competitions, the fat lady has almost performed her aria. Europe’s finest will be thinking of Russia. Minds will be turning to cultural trips to The Kremlin and The Bolshoi ballet whilst English players such as Raheem Sterling and Kyle Walker will be brushing up on their Solzenhitsyn, Marx and the life of Rasputin.
Gareth Southgate will be reminding all of his players of their responsibility to represent their country in a professional manner irrespective of the fact that their stay in Russia will be one of the shortest in recent history.
Gareth Southgate – Will have the players on their best behaviour during their short trip to Russia
Teams will fly in from all over the world to contest the biggest international break known to mankind. There will be some excellent games, there will be some boring games. There will be controversial decisions made whilst others will be ducked. There will be red cards, yellow cards, birthday cards and get-well-soon cards.
There will be horrible kits and there will be some nice ones and, at the end of it all, there will be some Germans doing a lap of honour on the pitch with the trophy being passed between themselves.
Joachim Löw will have that self-satisfied smirk on his face. The one which says that he was always aware that his team was going to win it. Knowingly, he will point out that, using a simple process of elimination, his team simply eliminated all the teams who weren’t as good, which just happened to be ALL the rest.
If you don’t wish to take our word for it and think that maybe some other emerging power, like Panama, will win this year’s trophy, then have a flutter and see what you can win. The odds should be spectacular for Panama!
Talking of spectacular odds, isn’t it about time Argentina did something before Lionel Messi is eligible for his old age pension? They always seem to have some pretty decent players and always seem to choke at big tournaments. If we are wrong about Germany, which we’re not, then maybe it would be good to see Messi pick up a winner’s medal after all the enjoyment he has spread through his football.
Lionel Messi – Yet to win a World Cup and this may be his last
The other one, Him, Cristiano, doesn’t have a good enough set of team mates to win this tournament so a World Cup winner’s medal will remain an absentee as far as his CV is concerned.
Neymar senior’s son, Neymar junior, will play through this year’s competition, hopefully, injury-free. Apparently, the improvement in the Brazilian team since their 7-1 shellacking at the hands of Germany four years ago, has been phenomenal and they are now amongst the favourites to win the thing. So there’s the final, Germany versus Brazil. It’s written in the stars! Unless, of course, they meet before the final then whoever wrote the stars needs to do some editing!
That brings us nicely to our other “favourite” for the trophy, which is those barmy Belgian boys!
The only things that will prevent the Red Devils collecting the pot are their inability to play as a coherent team in a big tournament, the inexperience of their manager at this level, the lack of success of their manager at any level and the lack of belief that they can actually win it. Other than that they have every chance.
So there’s our favourites, Germany, Brazil, Argentina and Belgium. Who are yours? Do you agree with our choice?
Here’s a page full of information to help you make your choice and here’s a nice chart plotting the route to the final and the eventual winner.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 
