The 2014 World Cup of Soccer is still a few months away, but I for one am already eager with anticipation. The biggest tournament in sports begins on June 12th in Brazil and runs for a month before the World Champion is crowned on July 13th. The 8 four-team groups have already been selected and theses groups have affected the chances (and odds) for some nations to win the title. Spain and The Netherlands for example, the two finalists from four years, meet once again in their first game of 2014 in the group of death that also includes Chile, a strong South American nation. You may have expected Spain to be the favourites to win this tournament given their ridiculous amount of success over the past six years having won Euro 2008 and 2012, as well as the 2010 World Cup. According to the odds though Spain are only the 4th favourites in Brazil and I think you have the possibility of being bounced in the first round as a big reason for this.
2014 World Cup Winner Odds – As of January 31st, 2014
Let’s get to it though. Here are the odds for each of the 32 nations:
- Brazil 4.00
- Argentina 5.00
- Germany 6.50
- Spain 8.00
- Belgium 15.00
- France 21.00
- Colombia 26.00
- Uruguay 26.00
- Italy 29.00
- Holland 29.00
- Portugal 34.00
- England 34.00
- Chile 51.00
- Russia 81.00
- Switzerland 101.00
- Mexico 101.00
- Ivory Coast 126.00
- Ecuador 126.00
- Bosnia-Herzegovina 151.00
- Croatia 151.00
- USA 151.00
- Japan 151.00
- Ghana 251.00
- Nigeria 251.00
- South Korea 301.00
- Greece 301.00
- Cameroon 501.00
- Australia 501.00
- Iran 1501.00
- Algeria 1501.00
- Honduras 2001.00
- Costa Rica 2501.00
It’s quite the long list, but there are some interesting points to take from it. The first non European/South American team on the list is Mexico and they are being given a 100/1 shot at winning the World Cup. It just goes to show how dominant the two main soccer continents are that the next best team would only have a 100/1 chance at winning the tournament.
The World Cup being held in South America seems to have increased countries from that continents chances in the eyes of the bookmaker. Brazil at 3/1 and Argentina at 4/1 are the two favourites, while Colombia (25/1), and Uruguay (25/1) are also both in the top 8 favourites for the tourney. Argentina and Colombia did finish 1-2 in the South American qualifying standings, while Brazil automatically qualified as hosts, but Uruguay finished behind both Chile and Ecuador and had to play a play-in game to qualify for Brazil. Chile is listed at 50/1 and this no doubt has a large part to do with them being in the same group as Holland and Spain.
I was surprised that Belgium is listed as the fifth favourite to win the tournament. Yes, they have a very easy group stage with Algeria, Russia and Korea, but they were in a fairly easy qualifying group in Europe, so how strong of a team they really are against stronger opponents is still undecided.
I personally like Holland at 28/1. They did perform very poorly at Euro 2012, but they absolutely ripped through their qualifying group that included a few decent teams in Romania, Hungary and Turkey. They will need van Persie, Robben and Sneijder in top form, but they have a good shot at going deep. They can never rest though with Chile and Spain both in their group. If they finish second in the group they are also likely up against Brazil in the first round of the knockout stages. All that said, at 28/1 I really like the Dutch.
For the same reason I just mentioned I don’t like the Brazil team at 3/1. Brazil will definitely play one of Spain, Holland or Chile in the round of 32 and it won’t get any easier from there. This means Brazil will have 5 extremely tough matches starting right from the round of 32 to win the title and any slip up puts them out of the tournament. At 3/1 the odds just aren’t good enough to bet on the favourites because of this.
My Pick: Holland 28/1
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