Welcome to the 2nd edition of World Cup 2014 predictions, compliments of Dude, our world cup spirit canine. Some of you may recall ‘Dude-stradamus’ , our Euro 2012 prognosticator and his knack for pick that tournament’s winners. We’ll as many of you saw yesterday, Dude is back to kicking butt like he did in 2012. He went 2 for 3 on 6/13, including picking the exact final scores for the Mexico and Chile matches.
Today is the only 4-match game day during WC14 so let’s see what tricks Dude has up his sleeves …
COLOMBIA vs. GREECE [Noon EDT start, ABC]
Colombia … a crazy talented squad even without the striker services of the talented Radamel Falcao. Falcao is still nursing his torn ACL, but Monaco teammate and attacking midfielder James Rodriguez as well as productive forward Teofilo Gutierrrez should easily carry the Colombians past the group stage. Unless you are greek or a lover of no offense, the Greeks offer a dull and methodical football style … this won’t work vs. Colombia. Dude is confident in a convincing Colombian victory.
URUGUAY vs. COSTA RICA [3PM EST start, ABC]
Dude says it does not take a rocket scientist to predict the winner in this one. His favorite player is Freddy Mercury aka Luis Suarez and Cavani. Together they will crush the Costa Ricans who always look really strong in CONCACAF qualifying until they get tested by ‘real’ squads or the snow (LOL).
ENGLAND vs. ITALY [6PM DST start, ESPN]
The 2nd epic match within the first three days of WC 2014. We actually see this one going sort of like Spain-Netherlands (in terms of dominance) but in England’s direction. This is the first time I remember the English being underdogs and not hyping up their big tournament chances … it suits them well. Although they have a young, unproven squad I think they can dominate the Italians especially since we just heard that Italy’s goalkeeping legend Buffon is out with an ankle injury. Go England … make it count.
Japan vs. Ivory Coast [9PM DST start, ESPN2]
We love Shinji Kagawa from his Borussia Dortmund days so hopefully we’ll see him dominating play for Japan. Cote d’Ivorie has Man City’s Yaya Toure in charge supported by ‘oldie but goldie’ Didier Drogba. This match-up looks even and Dude thinks we’ll see an entertaining scoreless draw.
