Champions

Francesco, Javier and Indhira, in that order.*

Oh, and Spain, of course. Congratulations to all.

Final standings.

___
*Provisional results. All computations will be hand-checked by Paulo.
UPDATE: Paulo has checked. Results are final.

Saudade

The World Cup nears its end. So does the 2010 edition of the Bolão. Who will win? Spain, Netherlands, Indhira, Francesco, Alex, Marulo, Javier, etc? And how will our dear friend Cabeça de Macaco finish? Too many questions. The most important one: how will we fill our days once the World Cup and the Bolão are over?

By the way, here are the current standings.

Second semifinal

Spain advances! People on the streets in Madrid go crazy.

Also, this outcome means that, regardless of the final match, there will be one less football-challenged team in the world.

Is Indhira still at the top?
Click for the answer.

First semifinal

Football-challenged* Netherlands wins over (twice) former champion Uruguay. Would it have been a different story if Tabarez hadn't substituted Forlan in the second half?

I don't know the answer, but I know where the standings are: here.
___
*defined as usual: as a national team which has never won a World Cup.

Europeans

European teams advance today.

Indhira leads the table, but Francesco is only one point behind. Click.

We're back!

"Tristeza invade a seleção brasileira." That's according to O Globo. On the other hand, the Uruguayan miracle continues. "Ocurrió algo sobrenatural" exaggeratedly states Tenfieldigital.

But there are other important things. We have the Bolão; and we're back!

Look at it.

P&P

Paraguay yes - Portugal no. Indhira is still at the top. This must be some kind of world record.

Now we have two days without games :(

Check the standings.

No surprises today

I had predicted one... Too bad.
But at least I'm still ahead of the Macaco. How about you?

Look here for the answer.

Elimination Round #2

Two teams have been eliminated. Two referee teams as well.

Indhira at the first place. She can't be stopped. Click ahead.

Bolao Newsletter, number 3

Dear Free Riders,

here it goes, an explosive edition with exclusive content:

--exclusive interview with Cabeca de Macaco

--exclusive column by new columnist La Malafemmena

--exclusive and literate words from Loose T.

--excruciating reply from the Anti-Against, aka The For.

Bolao da Copa Master Committee

The second stage is here!

If your team was eliminated, don't worry. You still have the Bolão to keep you happy.

It's a special day. The second stage has begun. Check the standings. The link is here.

End of the first stage

How did you do?
The answer here.

Italia. Ci vediamo in quattro anni (maybe)

Con due pareggi e una sconfitta gli azzurri sono stati eliminati dal torneo al primo turno. Non accadeva da 36 anni.

But, on the bright side, Cabeça de Macaco climbed to position 122! Verify his (and your) performance here.

By the way, Francesco is still at the top.

An African team advances

USA and England advance to the second round, in that order.
Germany and Ghana also, in that order.
Francesco is first with Marulo Mandela and Indhira following closely.
Cabeça de Macaco is a little behind.
Here are the Official Standings.

Change at the top

France didn't make it. I'm sure The Against will have something to say about it.

Francesco is the new leader. Check it out.

Notice that the first and second team classified earn points (belonging to Stage 1).

European Revival

With two thirds of the first stage over, we have a tie at the top: Indhira and Mariano. See for yourself.

In the meantime, European teams seem to be improving. Will France escape elimination tomorrow?

Kaka new Zidane?

Not yet. He has to learn to hit harder.

Standings stand here.

In this edition:
- Mariano Tappata is first, Indhira follows closely.
- Cabeça de Macaco has dropped below position 100 (temporarily, of course)

New Newsletter!

Important questions:
--has The Against found its nemesis?
--who is hot at the Bolao?

These and more in the new issue of Bolao da Copa Newsletter, here.

Halftime and change at the top

We are halfway through. Today's Netherlands-Japan match was the 24th game out of a total of 48 in the first stage.

After an impressive 4-day streak leading the table, Indhira Santos has been displaced from the first position by Javier. Mariano Tappata is still waiting for his turn.

Check out the Official Standings.

European Sovereign Football Crisis

PRETORIA. Fears of a sovereign football crisis concerning European countries -most notably Spain, France and Germany- erupted this week. Today betting spreads widened considerably. FIFA officials admitted that they are considering a rescue package. They would attempt to transfer points to the troubled teams by deploying "friendly" referees in important matches. Alternatively, Europeans could be granted permission to implement additional defensive measures such as putting three goalkeepers on the field.

Bolão participant Cabeça de Macaco, who earned 8 points by shorting Germany in its match against Serbia, spoke out against FIFA's meddling. "Intervening will only make matters worse. Changing the rules is bad for incentives" he said while peeling a banana.

Get today's standings.

French kiss of death

This is a first... Greece scored a goal in the World Cup. And not just one, two! Did you predict it? In that case, you did well.
If you bet on France advancing to the second round, on the other hand, you are in trouble. It now looks difficult to achieve. Anyway, you couldn't possibly have done worse than Cabeça de Macaco: instead of climbing the Bolão ladder like a macaco he is sliding it down like a drunken bruin. He is now at position 99 (down from 76 yesterday). How did you do? Click!!!

BBB (Bolao Brings Bliss): Episode 1

This post inaugurates the BBB section, a section that showcases how the Bolao reaches beyond a simple game competition. Featuring today the runner-up of Bolao 2006, the dear charrua Milton Sosa.

Upon his award-winning Bolao participation, Milton got invited by none-other than Diego Forlan, the uruguayan star and world class striker, to attend Uruguay's last practice in Montevideo before departing to South Africa. Milton reports that Forlan asked him intrigued how had he managed to succeed in the Bolao. Milton replied "Diego, I'll tell you when you come back, just focus on scoring goals now".

Diego Forlan scored twice against South Africa today, and was key in charrua's third goal, positioning his team in great shape to move onto the second round.

Bottomline: Bolao Brings Bliss. BBB señoras y señores.
Gracias Milton por seguir creyendo en la filosofia Bolao.

Proof:

Milton on the right, Forlan in the middle, Bebe on the left, and Uruguay's practice field in the back.

Standings

With a surprise loss by Spain, the Bolão proves that knowing the odds is not enough to be succesful in this game. How did you do? Click here for the answer.

Changes at the top...

...and, naturally, everywhere else on the table. Check for yourself.

Unexpected results

Japan 1 - Cameroon 0 and Italy 1 - Paraguay 1 were not the outcomes most Bolão participants expected. A good way of getting ahead if you nailed these results.
José "Nacho" Silva is still at the top, although Juan Vargas, Indhira Santos, Loose Tooth and Marulo Mandela are now closing up on him. For the complete standings click here.

The first issue

Dear Free Subscribers,

Four years later, we meet again. Your Bolao Newsletter team has missed you, but not as much as you have missed us. In this opening number, we don't save any bullets: we bring you our two star columnists safe and sound. Take out your make up, sit back, and enjoy.

Your BMC

PS: for your convenience, the newsletter is posted HERE, and it will be archived in the menu on the right for future reference.
PS': your feedback is important to us. Blog it down here/

Newsletter rumors

There are rumors that the very first newsletter of this year's Bolão is about to come out...

Official Standings

José "Nacho" Silva remains at the top. Also, there are no participants left with zero points thanks to Germany's 4-0 win over Australia. Click here for the updated standings.

Today's standings

Click here (PDF, 113kb) to view them.

Official Standings start tomorrow

Our regular service of providing updated standings will start on date 2 of the World Cup, once the first five games have been played.

Predictions

Do you want to know what everybody else predicted? Check their bets here. (.xls, 1261kb)

Wall Street in the Bolao: Sub-prime deja vu?

When Goldman Sachs, UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers heard about Bolao da Copa they immediately put their staff to work and did an in-depth analysis to predict the results of the World Cup. The 3 of them coincided that Brazil will be the champion in South Africa 2010. The one WallStreet Boy to differ was JP Morgan, who has predicted that it will be England the one to lift the cup in the African continent. John Hawksworth, lead macroeconomist of PricewaterhouseCoopers, reacted: "Brazil is still the favorite to lift the cup, it is the #1 football nation and is the only country to have won the World Cup outside of its region".

Goldman, Standard and Poors, and Commerzbank have made available their technical papers here.

While we invite our readers to freely express their opinions below, we wonder: Is Wall Street trying to turn Bolao da Copa into the next ASSET BUBBLE ?

Youngest Bolao Members cause Bolao to surpass 600$

Clementina (less than 6 months old) and Mateo (a little older), the youngest members to join the Bolao da Copa 2010, have led the total accumulated pot to surpass the 600 dollar barrier.

Clementina and Mateo ==> Welcome to the Bolao Family, hope you enjoy your first World Cup!

With 2 days left to send your Bolao predictions... will the pot cross the thousand?

Two more newsletters

Searching in our dusty archives we found two more Newsletter editions from 2006.
One features the Macaco and is called Bonus Edition. The other one is the Newsletter Season Finale. As it is the case with any Season Finale, you can't miss it.

Bolão da Copa™ 2010 is HERE

Finally, the day we have all been waiting for!

The file to input your predictions is available for download (Excel file, 473kb).

Be sure to carefully read the rules on the first page of the file. Fill in your predictions, save the file, and send the file to the Bolão da Copa™ Master Committee at bolaomacaco@gmail.com before June 11 2010, 6:00AM South Africa Time (GMT+2).
Don't forget to pay the fee (USD10 or EUR8) to your local Bolão da Copa™ Master Committee representative.

Readings to prepare for the Bolao #5

According to today's International Herald Tribune...

"The (Penalty) Shootout is the Ultimate Mind Game.
Several studies point to power of psychology in taking penalty kicks."

Full text available here.
- - -
UPDATE: Anonymous comment points us to José Apesteguia and Ignacio Palacios-Huerta's "Psychological Pressure in Competitive: Environments: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment"
Abstract: This paper studies the behavior of professional subjects involved in a dynamic competition in their own natural environment. The setting is a penalty shoot-out in soccer where two teams compete in a tournament framework taking turns in a sequence of five penalty kicks each. As the kicking order is determined by the random outcome of a coin flip, the treatment and control
groups are determined via explicit randomization. Therefore, absent any psychological eff ects, both teams should have the same probability of winning regardless of the kicking order. Yet, we find a systematic first-kicker advantage. Using data on 2,731 penalty kicks from 262 shoot-outs for a three decade period, we fi nd that teams kicking fi rst win the penalty shoot-out 60.5% of the time. A dynamic panel data analysis shows that the psychological mechanism underlying this result arises from the asymmetry in the partial score. As most kicks are scored, kicking first typically means having the opportunity to lead in the partial score, whereas kicking second
typically means lagging in the score and having the opportunity to, at most, get even. Having a worse prospect than the opponent hinders subjects' performance.
Further, we also find that professionals are self-aware of their own psychological effects. When a recent change in regulations gives winners of the coin toss the chance to choose the kicking order, they rationally react to it by systematically choosing to kick fi rst. A survey of professional players reveals that when asked to explain why they prefer to kick first, they precisely identify the psychological mechanism for which we find empirical support in the data: they want to lead in the score in order to put pressure on the opponent.

Relive the 2006 Bolão da Copa

Do you remember Loose Tooth? And The Against? Now you can read their contributions to the 2006 Bolão Newsletter. All 14 full-text issues of the Newsletter are available in the Archive, on the right hand side of this blog.

Brought to you by your friendly Bolão da Copa™ Master Committee.

Readings to prepare for the Bolao #4

March L. Krotee (1979): "The Rise and Demise of Sport: A Reflection of Uruguayan Society", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 445, p.142

Excerpt:

Readings to prepare for the Bolao #3

P.-A. Chiappori; S. Levitt; T. Groseclose (2002): "Testing Mixed-Strategy Equilibria When Players Are Heterogeneous: The Case of Penalty Kicks in Soccer", The American Economic Review, 92(4), p.1140

Excerpt:

Readings to prepare for the Bolao #2

Bertil Ahrnborg (1950): "Betting on Football Matches in Sweden", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 269, p.149.

Excerpt:

Readings to prepare for the Bolao #1

Nicholas M. Kiefer (1988): "Economic Duration Data and Hazard Functions", Journal of Economic Literature, 26(2), p.648

Excerpt (click to enlarge)

Bolão da Copa Reloaded

Bolão da Copa South Africa 2010 will be here soon...