{"id":1366,"date":"2010-06-18T13:05:36","date_gmt":"2010-06-18T17:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=1366"},"modified":"2010-06-18T13:09:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-18T17:09:00","slug":"the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spain lost. France was (I feel quietly confident in using the past tense) <span class=\"annotation\">awful<\/span>. Brazil struggled to break down the obdurate <span class=\"annotation\">North Koreans<\/span>. As I write this, Germany just lost to Serbia who already lost to Ghana making Group D impossible to predict. Japan beat Cameroon. England is running a you-be-the-goalkeeper campaign for the World Cup lottery. Chile and Uruguay both look pretty tasty. Italy isn&#8217;t looking unshaky. Only Argentina is fulfilling their historical imperative and they haven\u2019t had to defend yet.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, it\u2019s been low scoring and the ball is a disaster but this is delightful chaos. FIFA had arranged it so that if Brazil and Spain won their groups, they would not meet until the final. Now, if Spain finishes second, which is quite likely, the two will meet in the next round. And if Switzerland can hold on for two draws, they will have the easiest route to the finals. This could be the most unpredictable World Cup ever. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spain lost. France was (I feel quietly confident in using the past tense) awful. Brazil struggled to break down the obdurate North Koreans. As I write this, Germany just lost to Serbia who already lost to Ghana making Group D impossible to predict. Japan beat Cameroon. England is running a you-be-the-goalkeeper campaign for the World [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[86,85,242],"class_list":["post-1366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-cup-2010","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-unpredictability"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever? by Will Frears<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"June 18, 2010 \u2013 Spain lost. France was (I feel quietly confident in using the past tense) awful. Brazil struggled to break down the obdurate North Koreans. As I write\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever? by Will Frears\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 18, 2010 \u2013 Spain lost. France was (I feel quietly confident in using the past tense) awful. Brazil struggled to break down the obdurate North Koreans. As I write\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-18T17:05:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2010-06-18T17:09:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Will Frears\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Will Frears\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Will Frears\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/179048c783eeebe79c157caa4e7eb31b\"},\"headline\":\"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever?\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-06-18T17:05:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-06-18T17:09:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/\"},\"wordCount\":170,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"soccer\",\"sports\",\"unpredictability\"],\"articleSection\":[\"World Cup 2010\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/\",\"name\":\"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever? by Will Frears\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-06-18T17:05:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-06-18T17:09:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"June 18, 2010 \u2013 Spain lost. France was (I feel quietly confident in using the past tense) awful. Brazil struggled to break down the obdurate North Koreans. As I write\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/179048c783eeebe79c157caa4e7eb31b\",\"name\":\"Will Frears\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1d4b5f677297ca9028114d20b3d4f35bbc275b43f0fe4c37ec0ed50e6cf76251?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1d4b5f677297ca9028114d20b3d4f35bbc275b43f0fe4c37ec0ed50e6cf76251?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Will Frears\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/wfrears\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever? by Will Frears","description":"June 18, 2010 \u2013 Spain lost. France was (I feel quietly confident in using the past tense) awful. Brazil struggled to break down the obdurate North Koreans. As I write","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever? by Will Frears","og_description":"June 18, 2010 \u2013 Spain lost. France was (I feel quietly confident in using the past tense) awful. Brazil struggled to break down the obdurate North Koreans. As I write","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2010-06-18T17:05:36+00:00","article_modified_time":"2010-06-18T17:09:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Will Frears","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Will Frears","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/"},"author":{"name":"Will Frears","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/179048c783eeebe79c157caa4e7eb31b"},"headline":"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever?","datePublished":"2010-06-18T17:05:36+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-18T17:09:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/"},"wordCount":170,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"keywords":["soccer","sports","unpredictability"],"articleSection":["World Cup 2010"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/","name":"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever? by Will Frears","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-06-18T17:05:36+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-18T17:09:00+00:00","description":"June 18, 2010 \u2013 Spain lost. France was (I feel quietly confident in using the past tense) awful. Brazil struggled to break down the obdurate North Koreans. As I write","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/18\/the-most-unpredictable-world-cup-ever\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Most Unpredictable World Cup Ever?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/179048c783eeebe79c157caa4e7eb31b","name":"Will Frears","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1d4b5f677297ca9028114d20b3d4f35bbc275b43f0fe4c37ec0ed50e6cf76251?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1d4b5f677297ca9028114d20b3d4f35bbc275b43f0fe4c37ec0ed50e6cf76251?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Will Frears"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/wfrears\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1380,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions\/1380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}