Once again, it's going to be Brazil or whoever beats Brazil. (McGrath)

Just checking the wisdom of this prediction with the sample of the 14 World Cups between 1950 and 2002:

Six times, Brazil was in the finals, so the sentence is trivially true, just as a similar sentence about Germany would be trivially true in more than 50% of all cases (Germany was in 7 finals in the 13 championships from 1954 on).

How often was it true in the remaining 8 cases? Three out of eight times the winner had beaten Brazil at one time during the competition, the other 5 times the winner had either not beaten Brazil or not played Brazil at all. All in all, there are many more cases in which a team has beaten Brazil and did not win the tournament (for instance, in 1966 two teams have beaten Brazil during the tournament and both did not reach the final) than cases in which a team has beaten Brazil and became champion.

But if one adds the 6 trivial cases in which Brazil has reached the final, the prediction that the winner either is Brazil or a team that has beaten Brazil is correct 9 out of 14 times.

But scanning through the tables of all those post war championships there can be found a 100% true prediction which should make England fear the worst in case they meet Germany soon and win: All 12 teams that have beaten Germany at any time before the final have not become world champion later. Most of them even lost the game immediately after beating Germany.

So I predict that whoever beats Germany before the final will not be champion.

Wolfgang (who is not taking serious any of such prediction games)