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World Cup Odds: Germany Seeks back-to-back titles

Don Aguero

by Don Aguero in Soccer News

Updated Jan 17, 2018 · 9:39 AM PST

Neymar playing for Brazil
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It’s time to update our odds for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. The FIFA world rankings are pretty volatile at the moment, so let’s not pay too much attention to them. What’s more important is the current form of the squads and the quality of their lineups.

Here are the favorites and a few qualification odds for the dark horses.


Odds to win the 2018 World Cup:

Winning back-to-back World Cups is no easy feat, but then again, neither was beating Brazil 7-1 in their home stadium. Germany may have lost to host nation France in the Euro 2016 semifinals, but they’re still the clear favorites in Russia. But in order to repeat their 2014 performance, the Germans will have to find replacements for Philipp Lahm, Per Mertesacker and Miroslav Klose, who all retired following their 2014 win.

The 7-1 crushing will never completely leave the nation’s psyche, but Brazil is off to a decent start rebuilding their team. They’ve already taken care of the most important task – firing manager Dunga. It’s never fair to pin all the blame on one person, but I think it’s fair to say that most of the blame Dunga received was warranted. Brazil has played a lot better without him, and they have a real shot at redemption in 2018.

Spain may have bombed out in the group stages in the 2014 World Cup and exited in the Round of 16 at Euro 2016, but you can’t deny the amount of talent the squad has. On paper, they may be the best team in world football, even if their recent results suggest otherwise. They’re finally allowing their younger guys to shine, rather than clinging onto their aging World Cup winning squad from 2010. Hopefully, that pays off for them next year.

World cup runners up Argentina and Euro 16 runners up France are also hot on the list of favorites. Both countries have come close to winning major trophies in recent years, but have fallen short each time.

Germany: 11/2
Brazil: 8/1
Spain: 9/1
Argentina: 10/1
France: 11/1


Odds to qualify for European long shots:

Let’s take a look at some of the dark horses in the running. With all the success we saw from smaller nations at Euro 2016, I’m sure fans would love to see more from countries like Wales, Iceland and Northern Ireland.

Wales defied the odds and reached the Euro ’16 semifinals, where they eventually lost to Portugal. For anyone outside of England, it’s always a joy to see the Welsh do better than the English. Currently, Wales isn’t doing too well in their qualifiers, but it’s still very early. They don’t have a lot of depth, relying very heavily on their star striker, Gareth Bale. But it’s worked out alright for them so far.

Northern Ireland and Iceland also had a good run at the Euros. Iceland qualified second in a relatively tough group and went on to beat England in the round of 16. And because of that, they became the Euro darlings. Meantime, Northern Ireland sneaked through into the round of 16 and lost to Wales.

Wales: 1/1
Iceland: 31/19
Bulgaria: 4/1
Turkey: 4/1
Northern Ireland: 83/17


Photo credit: Ver en vivo En Directo (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/]

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