SuperShorts: Money on England

Fear not, fans of the Three Lions, the World Cup is yours. Financial analysts at JP Morgan have crunched the numbers and found that England will triumph in South Africa.

Bank boffins Matthew Burgess and Marco Dion used quant methodology (that's the use of mathematical data to assess investment opportunities - do try to keep up) to find that Fabio Capello's men will end 44 years of hurt by downing Spain in the final. According to their numbers, Holland will finish third. No word on the All Whites.

"Having developed a rather successful quant model over the years," Burgess and Dion say, "we intend to introduce it to our readers and also use its methodology to apply it to a fruitful field for statistics: football and the World Cup."

Money off England
Swiss bank UBS sees things differently. They're predicting Brazil will triumph in South Africa. Using economic theory, the Swiss bankers rate Brazil a 22 per cent chance of lifting the cup and Germany an 18 per cent chance (this was before the exit of Michael Ballack).

The fondue-munchers have calculated England won't make it past the quarter-finals. Again. And, again, no word on the All Whites.

Money off moneymen
And of course, the moneymen are to be believed, aren't they? They always know what's best. For the record, JP Morgan needed a $36 billion bailout from the US government in 2008 and UBS has had to make about $73 billion in write-downs and cut 11,000 jobs since 2007. At time of writing, there's been no word on Wayne Rooney's thoughts about the efficacy of Greek debt reduction.

Vote for Romario!
Brazilian soccer legend Romario says he won't be trading on his sporting fame to win a place in parliament in October's elections. "On the pitch I was one of the best in my position," says the former PSV Eindhoven and Barcelona striker. "I will try to be one of the best here, too!" Unlike his election rivals, who have set out their policies to the voters, the Brazilian Socialist Party candidate has revealed little about his plans.

"I'm genuine and people can believe what I say," the 1994 World Cup-winning captain says. "Secondly, I'm predestined - that's how it was in football and in politics it will be the same!"

Free stuff!
We've got 10 of these great World Cup guides from Sky TV to give away. The book features all the teams and all the World Cup stars. To go in the draw for a copy of the 2010 Complete World Cup Guide just email us at supersport@nzherald.co.nz and put "It's called soccer not football" in the subject line.

Include your name, phone number and postal address in the text of the email.

And watch out for the Herald's 32-page liftout guide on June 2.