World Football RankingsUpdated through matches played 5 Jul 2006These rankings rank teams in football (known as "soccer" here in the States) using a computer program that analyzes previous results, including home advantage, offense, defense, importance of game (e.g., World Cup results count more than friendlies), and date of game (more recent results count more).
Our computers have simulated the World Cup already, thousands of times, in order to get more insight into what's likely to happen in Germany. A variety of statistics are available on those simulations, like the odds that a team will win its group, advance to the knockout stage, advance to the final game, and so forth. Here are the World Cup favorites, according to the simulations:
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