I Dont think real world betting should be allowed on esreality. It should stick to "esports"

we are betting E-money :P

we may be betting e-money but imagine going to a football site and then seeing betting on tennis. Doesn't feel right

I think betting on real games kind of fits "Where gaming meets reality", but I don't really care either way

i agree, real world sports bets are kinda bleh to me.

but if others have fun with them I don't care, I just won't bet on them and stick to the e-sports bets :)

"betting open: 9 Jun 2006 17:00 GMT to 8 Jun 2006" isnt that the wrong way round? :P

I'm such an expert on this site! :)

hehe

excellent :D

My prediction for Group A;

9/6: Germany 3:0 Costa Rica
9/6: Poland 1:1 Ecuador
14/6: Germany 2:1 Poland
15/6: Ecuador 1:1 Costa Rica
20/6: Ecuador 0:2 Germany
20/6: Costa Rica 0:1 Poland

1. Germany, 9 pts
2. Poland, 4 pts
3. Ecuador, 2 pts
4. Costa Rica, 1 pts

---

Germanys way to the final if placed #1 - the opponent's they'll most likely face;
- 1/8: Sweden/England/Paraguay
- 1/4 (quarter): Holland/Argentina
- 1/2 (semi): France/Italy
- Final.

If placed #2 in group A;
- 1/8: Sweden/England/Paraguay
- 1/4 (quarter): Holland/Argentina/Portugal
- 1/2 (semi): Brazil
- Final.

Even the polish fans dont have such optimistic view on what our current team can do :P

And the number of jokes about it is beating everything, with all time favorite "Who will Poland face after group stage ? Their families on airport."

Wtf is this? Poland will cruise into 2nd place ://

Well, the joke going around in Germany is something like:

"What is a dutch guy doing after his team won the WC?"

"He shuts down his playstation!"

:D

P.S.: Notice that they at least qualify this time ("Ohne Holland fahr'n wir zur WM!" does not work anymore) :p

Doesnt surprise me at all. My girlfriend's parents are form Poland and they say the same. Amazing, really :).. Even if Sweden would suck as much as, say, Ghana or whatever, I'd cheer for them and hope for good results!

a german "kurpfalz" team won against costa rica. (3:2) kurpfalz is a region in germany and the players playing in this team were amateurs playing from 3rd? to 5th german league.
this match was some days ago.

i would bet money that germany wins higher then with 5 goals difference if i could although the german team sucks and will not survive quarter finals.

costa rica is by far the worst team in this world cup.

hmm, I believe trinidad & Tobago and Sausi Arabia challenge Costa Rice for that title :P

And anyway Germany is "teh Turniermannschaft"so they might even ake Semis :)

lol Sausi Arabia are much better then them.

you mean the team thal lost 0-8 to Germany in 2002?

yes.

Maybe they are not that great, but Costa Rica beat USA with 3-0 in the qualifications, and USA is a good team.

Costa Rica should be the worst team in the group, but saying they are the worst team in the WC shows you have no clue of football. The worst team is without a doubt T&T. You can never use practice game results as a true measure of a teams strength, and seeing as they played a pretty strong World cup in 2002, managed to qualify again and probably are not worse now, your prognosis of a win with 5 goals or more is simply totally unrealistic.

use the reply button

totally agree!! ... excellent comment, in football nothing is written till the final whistle blows..

Well said

our national team certainly has a weird performance track record, looking back in 2002 qualies, we got first place, even beating Mexico in their own "yard", and only losing one game (iirc).
but the team blew it up in the world cup, obviously we weren't specting to beat Brazil, Turkey got away with it in goal difference (and ended up in 4th place).

but this time around, the qualifiers were an entire mess, 3 coaches, inconsistant team line up, lots of under performance in regional cups, and even put at risk the whole world cup ticket.

after seeing the results from all Group A teams these past weeks, i gotta say this is one of the weakest groups, and all 4 teams are lacking, with GER having the most pressure on.

edit: typos

Portugal for the World Cup.

On a less patriotic note, the main contenders for the cup this year will be the following teams in my honest opinion:

Brazil
France
Netherlands
England
Portugal

And a huge outsider bet goes to South Korea for a huge upset :P

i missing Argentinia in your list, and Portuagl had their chance 2 years ago, doubt they'll get anywhere near that this time around.

That wasnt a world cup in 2004 and Portugal arent going to win shit.

They'll get put out by England or Holland.

thanks for the info, but didn't I say the same?

Ye the comment was more directed at link

I got the feeling that France will disappoint again like they did in 2002, they are free to prove me wrong though ;-)

I doubt we will, with such a shit coach...

South Korea doesnt look all too good at the moment and I doubt they'll live up to the 4th place they snagged last time. But it's not impossible that they end up at #2 in their group..

USA are the "dark horse" of this competition in my opinion.

So many people underrate them and look what happened in Korea/Japan lots of underrated teams did really well.

They're shit tbh. They will lose every group game.

Out of the none big teams they are probably the one with best chance !

I would rather look to the Swiss as the dark horse.

depends on who you call big really.

Czech Republic, Coast de
Ivoire and crostia are all stronger in my opinion, but at least the latter two aren't considered big teams

DARK HORSE is a team not meant to do well (e.g. is shit) but does well!!!!

ah, ok. mistook it for meaning underdog.

but then I would go with the swiss as well, cause they are quite young and might just go on a roll.

U.S. didn't do that bad last year, losing 0-1 only against the semi-finalist. Yes, I know they still have shitty players but I kind of expect them to do something.

Woohoo!

Germany is not playing with Ballack! Which means they will now destroy Costa rica. I sure hope Borowski will play.

:<

Borowski, Klose. Heh. Polish names. Yea, made by Germany.

Klose and Podolski are half-polish but decided to play for Germany, where they grew up.
Afaik Borowski has no polish roots, at least his parents are both german.

And yes, at least in the grup stage Borowski is perfectly able to replace Ballack, but against the "big" ones our teamleader is more important than anyone else.

Ballack is not a team leader, nice try.

first he is not fit, and now he is. You know why he says he is now fit, because he is scared that Borowski might have a bigger impact than Ballack. btw you do know that in the last season Borowski was the better midfield player than Ballack.
Borowski would be the type that could grow in a tournament, he has more potential than Ballack. Every player is replaceable, even Ballack.

borowski is a great player but he is not a better player than Ballack, especially when Ballack gets his more defensive role.

What a lot of people, like you, don't realize it that because of his status gets doubled most of the time. That makes it harder for him to play, but his teammates get more space and thus can play better.

Believe it or not, there really is a reason why a lot of the top European teams would pay insane amounts of money for Ballack instead of Borowski.

/edit: Gotta agree with your first point though, he is no team leader

at the moment I agree that a "fit" Ballack probably is better than Borowski. I still think that Borowski has more potential. and he just needs a fair chance to show it. I honestly think that Borowski can surpass Ballack since Borowski can read a game better than Ballack and is more effective in bringing the other players (Klose Podolski) into play. I think Klose, Podolski, and Schweinsteiger are more effective attacking than Ballack, the problem is they need to be put into play and that should be Ballack´s role, and that is his weakness.

any way this is just my opinion, I am not saying Ballack is a bad player, how ever his "super" status was given to him becuase their was no "great" german player the last few years, so he was hyped into being a great player because he was the best available. To be honest I think he will loose the status at this WM, some other german player will become the hero.

There is no way a guy with stricle polish last name wouldnt have any polish roots. Even if he would be 99% german blood right now, somewhere in past his polish grand grand (who knows how many grands) grandfather fucked a german girl ;)

The thing is, most European players are awfully tired in the summer and seriously underperform. It happened in 2002, in 2004 and I fear this will happen again now. Tough leagues and CL all year is the cause. Same goes for foreign players who play for European teams.

That's the only reason why international competitions are so unpredictable. For example, you can't expect Henry to go out there and play god when he's done 38 matches on the Premiership + all English cups + all the CL matches. He's human after all.

Ger $$$$$$$