Saifedean Ammous’s World cup preview and predictions

Saifedean Ammous in The Saif House:

After the success of my predictions for the 2010 and 2014  World Cup, I have decided to not quit while I’m ahead, and put my neck and footballing knowledge on the line and hand everyone in the internet the chance to mock me relentlessly if I get things wrong. Please note I’ve been extremely busy with my book and have not had time to review this properly or edit it, so it might have mistakes, but you are not paying me for it so please don’t waste even more time complaining and arguing with me. We’re both better off spending that time watching the games!

Egypt

Football is an industry built on delusion. I don’t mean to imply that is a bad thing. On the contrary, that is an essential part of the beauty of the game. Billions of boys all around the world, including your humble correspondent, grow up with the utterly delusional dream that one day they will lift the World Cup, leading a team of their countrymen against the best players of the world, fighting hard to get to the final, scoring the winning goal, and then lifting the trophy and spending the rest of their life basking in the glory and admiration of the entire planet.

More here.