World Cup Prediction Competition

Hello everybody, it's now just 17 days until the the start of the biggest sporting event on the planet (possibly).

Some of you may remember my prediction competition from 2010

That competition was won by Gearcutter and the Barnardos charity ended up £68.71 better off.

I'm doing the same this time round - here are 10 reasons you should enter.......

1.) It's free
2.) It's simple
3.) As long as at least 15 people enter I'll donate £50 to a recognised charity of the winner's choice
4.) You can test your football knowledge against some of the world's top excel experts (and me)
5.) It's free
6.) You can follow your progress and compare against other participants in a no-expense-spared-state-of-the-art excel spreadsheet
7.) It's still free
8.) er.......
9.) that's it

Here's what you do

Open the attached spreadsheet
Fill in your predicted scores for all 48 group games (I've filled in the first one as an example - obviously you can change that score!)
Fill in a name (the name you want displayed - use an alias if you wish)
Fill in the "tie-breaker" under "Goals" - that's how many goals you think will be scored in total in those 48 games.
Now save the workbook and either post it in a reply to this thread or email it to me at d.addylonglegs@virgin.net [exactly as shown - don't forget the "." after the first "d"]
Option 2 is preferable - especially if you don't want others to see your predictions.
If you want to contribute to the winning charity then you can paypal to my email address above - any contributions will be added to the final amount.......although there is absolutely no obligation to do so.

Rules

Scoring is as follows:

A rank is displayed against every team based on the current world rankings, and converted to a ranking within the 32 world cup qualifiers [the "highest" rank is 1]. If you predict a draw and the result is a draw (any draw) you get 3 points. If you predict a win for the higher ranked team and that team wins (by any score) you get 2 points, if you predict a win for the lower ranked team and that team wins you get 4 points. you get 2 additional points if you get the exact score right.

For example in game 1 Brazil play Croatia and Brazil are higher ranked (4 to 19) so if you predict a 2-1 win for Brazil and they win 2-1 you get 4 points, 2 for predicting a win by the higher placed team, and 2 for the correct score. If you predict 2-1 and the result is 3-1 then you'll just get the 2 points etc......

All scores are added and the highest score after 48 games is the winner. Any ties will be decided by the tie-breaker in favour of the closest guess. If it's still tied then kudos and charity are shared.

Predictions need to be emailed to me or posted here by 19:00 BST on Thursday 12th June 2014 - that's 2 hours before the kick-off of the first game.

I will be adding my predictions and posting a spreadsheet back here showing all predictions and a table that will update as you enter the scores. Remember, if you don't want to see your name in lights - use an alias

Advice

It's meant to be fun - anybody taking it too seriously will be ridiculed

If you don't know anything about football (e.g. Chelsea supporters) don't let that stop you entering - for those of you who really know nothing about football, typical top level football games average just over 2 goals a game, so you may not get very far predicting 8-7 scorelines.......

In the last World Cup in South Africa in 2010 the 48 group games produced a total of only 101 goals (2.104 per game on average).

Good luck

Any questions please feel free to post here