VAR and penalties

Wins by Brazil, Nigeria, and Switzerland today. The VAR made an appearance in the Brazil - Costa Rica game and denied Neymar a penalty (which should have been awarded according to the time-honored tradition of the dubious penalty rule). The VAR did award a penalty to Iceland in the game against Nigeria... but in Group D they don't like to accept penalty kicks and they usually shoot them out on purpose.

Neymar cannot withstand the strong wind in the penalty area and falls to the ground.

What happened in today's standings? In the top-4 we find exactly the same people as yesterday (Papa Patrick 1st, Micaela 2nd, pcasal3 3rd, Daniela Moura 4th). Where is the rest? Right here.

June solstice

Today Denmark tied 1-1 with Australia and France won 1-0 against Peru. The big surprise today was the 3-0 win of Croatia against Argentina. It was only predicted by 13 Bolão participants (among them Cabeça de Macaco), although nobody got the exact score right.

Will the money be used to buy new goalkeeper?

Papa Patrick is 1st, Micaela 2nd, and pcasal3 is 3rd. Cabeça de Macaco is on place 143. The complete standings are here.

Uruguay nomá

All of today's games ended 1-0 and there were no major surprises. The 1-0 win of Uruguay against Saudi Arabia was maybe the most boring game of the World Cup so far but as a result we now know that both Russia and Uruguay advance to the second stage. Although we still don't know in what order (maybe Achilles does).

Luis Suarez scores while four defenders watch in awe. Meanwhile, the Saudi goalkeeper is asking Diego Godin for an autograph.

In the standings there were some interesting movements. There is now a tie at the top: Micaela and Papa Patrick share the 1st place with 118 points and they are followed closely by Angie and Chepa, who are tied on 3rd place with 106 points. What about you? Search for your name in the standings here.

Achilles gets it right again

Today's games started out with a surprise loss by Colombia against Japan. Surprising indeed as only 4 Bolão participants predicted that Japan would win. Then Senegal won against Poland, as expected by 27 participants, and Russia against Egypt, as predicted by 44 participants, and by Achilles, the deaf cat... Actually, who knows what he predicted:

Achilles was tasked with predicting the winner in the Russia-Egypt encounter later tonight. The cat, as soon as he was presented with the two bowls, rushed to eat from the Russian bowl. But in a mood to puzzle the spectators, Achilles also ate from the bowl with the Egyptian flag. While the organizers are confident that he predicted a Russia win, is the cat hinting at a draw? Maybe he was predicting that Russia would score first but Egypt would equalize later? Or maybe he was just hungry and latched on to whatever food he got, without caring about which bowl he ate from first.

In any case, it was a bad day for Cabeça de Macaco, who didn't score a single point today. In fact, his predicted final is Colombia-Germany, which didn't look like a bad choice ex-ante but has lost some of its appeal given the last results.

It is a sad day for macacos

Congratulations to Papa Patrick and Micaela who continue to lead the standings. Chepa has now joined them in the 3rd place. Cabeça de Macaco is down to position 144. The complete standings are here.

A new record

Finally, Super-Angie scored some points today. So far, this participant had managed to maintain a score of zero for the first four days of competition, breaking a new record at the Bolão da Copa. Congratulations! Not even Cabeça de Macaco had been able to do that (Incidentally, for those of you who asked about this, read this old newsletter to learn how Cabeça de Macaco makes his random predictions). [Her alter ego Angie is doing much better at place 4]

Is this a picture of Super-Angie? Why didn't she use her superpowers against Mexico?

Today's wins of Sweden, Belgium and England left us with the following configuration at the top: Papa Patrick and Micaela continue in the first two positions and Paulinho is now 3rd. Cabeça de Macaco, who didn't profit from the last-minute goal of England, drops to position 142. The full standings are here.

More surprises

Wow. What is happening? 

After the comfortable 5-0 win for Russia in the opening game nothing is going as expected: France barely won against Australia, Argentina tied with Iceland, Germany lost with Mexico, Brazil tied with Switzerland...

Is there an evil plot to attack the Bolão? Who is behind it? I'm sure it must be a friend of Achilles the deaf cat.

Teams are realizing that they shouldn't have drunk all those cases of vodka sent by this man on the first day of the competition

Only three people predicted that Germany would lose to Mexico and only 12 predicted the tie between Brazil and Switzerland.

Papa Patrick is now 1st, Micaela is 2nd, and Maud 3rd. Cabeça de Macaco is currently 84th. The complete standings are here.

Another surprise: Neymar wears his spaghetti from lunch on his head

Four on the third

There were four games today. Lots of opportunities to score points. The biggest surprise today was the tie between Argentina and Iceland, which was only predicted by Cabeça de Macaco and 11 other people.

Maybe Argentina should have tried to play with more than just one player

There are important changes at the top: Paulinho is now 1st, Micaela 2nd, and Quique 3rd. Cabeça de Macaco is 58th. In what position are you? Find the answer here.

Second day

The second day is over... and what an exciting day it was. In the first two games just one goal was scored, right before the end of the match: Egypt 0 - Uruguay 1 and Morocco 0 - Iran 1.

The final game of the day was played between Spain and Portugal. Spain played without their coach, who resigned just before the World Cup started, and without their characteristic red shirt (recall that they lost the right to be called "La Roja" against Chile in the last World Cup). At least, the game had some goals and ended with a 3 - 3 tie.

Former Spanish coach Lopetegui has just found out that as punishment for resigning to the national team he will be forced to be the coach of Real Madrid next season.

In the Bolão, Fran and Vero&Juan are now tied in the first place with Quique following closely in the third place. Cabeça de Macaco is 44th. The complete standings are here.

Opening game

And the World Cup begins... Russia won against Saudi Arabia, as predicted by Achilles, the deaf cat, and Cabeça de Macaco. In total, 84 bets, including that of the Macaco predicted that Russia would win and that Saudi Arabia would score zero goals. They are now all placed in first place in our current standings. See here.

Achilles, the deaf cat, is preparing for the next prediction

Let's see how Achilles fares as the competition progresses. Be careful Achilles! Don't expose your heel or the Macaco is going to randomly throw bananas at it and outpredict you.

Predictions are online now

We have received 145 predictions this year. A new record for the Bolão!

Everybody's predictions are now online. You can download the file here to verify whether yours is included.

Also take some time to take a look at the predictions by our beloved Cabeça de Macaco. According to him, the opening match will finish Russia 2 - Saudi Arabia 0; not too outrageous by the standards of our random-betting mascot.

Bolão da Copa 2018 launched!

Continuing the tradition initiated in 2006, the dearest World Cup prediction game is back!

What is it about?
It's about predicting the outcome of each of the upcoming World Cup matches. You get points for predicting the right winner, the exact score, etc. Each participant pays a fee to submit a prediction, and at the end of the tournament the pot is split between the best 3 predictions (60% to the best, 30% to second best, 10% to the third).

Every day we produce and share the standings so you can track your progress...

The standings and other materials such as occasional fun readings from undercover envoys, are published in our blog at http://bolaomacaco.blogspot.com.

How to participate?

If you wish to take part, download this Excel file. Then follow the instructions included in the file to submit your predictions. (after you open the file, Excel may ask you to "enable edit", look for a yellow message on top of the Excel window)

Be sure to fill in all information, save the file, and send it to bolaomacaco@gmail.com before the deadline on June 14 2018 at 7am Moscow time (midnight of June 13 in New York).

The cost per participation is USD 12 or EUR 10 or BRL 45.
You can pay in person to one of the 3 Bolao Delegates (Facundo in Turkey, Rolf in Spain/Germany, Paulinho in Brazil), or email bolaomacaco@gmail.com for bank transfer instructions.

Can I invite others?

Yes of course. Feel free to invite friends and family.

Any questions? Let us know!

Have a happy Bolão!
Your loyal BMC

~ Bolão Master Committee ~

One more time, we're back!!!

It's official... The Bolão da Copa is back this year! Join Cabeça de Macaco in this traditional prediction game and try to finish ahead of him.

We'll be posting the rules for the Bolão da Copa 2018 edition, and the spreadsheet for predictions, over the next few days.

Check this place obsessively for updates