The 20th edition of soccer’s World Cup will be held between June 13th and July 13th in Brazil in 2014. It will be the second time the nation has hosted the event, with the first time being in 1950. Being the host nation, Brazil will automatically qualify for the competition.

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The first World Cup was hosted and won by Uruguay in 1930 and since then it has been held every four years with Brazil winning the cup a record five times. It might have been more, but the tournament was called off in both 1942 and 1946 due to World War II.

The 2014 World Cup will feature 32 teams from all over the world who will take part in qualifying tournaments to see who will make it. There will be dozens of countries hoping to grab one of the prized 32 spots and the qualifying games in some areas of the world will kick off later in 2011.

Once the 32 teams have been settled, the tournament will feature eight groups of four teams with the top two in each group qualifying to the next stage of the competition.

World Cup Betting Predictions

Spain won the last World Cup, which was held in South Africa in 2010, and will be one of the favourites in 2014. Brazil of course, being the home nation as well as the all-time leaders in cup triumphs, will be right up there, ranked in the top two or three.

Some of the other favourites are all former World Cup winners. These include Italy, with four cup wins, Germany, who has won it three times, Uruguay and Argentina, who have won it twice apiece and England, Spain, and France, who won it once each.

However, there are now some strong African nations who could pull off an upset, such as Ivory Coast, Ghana, and the always dangerous Cameroon. Mexico always fields a good team and Australia is steadily improving. There are also a couple of strong teams in Europe who have never won the cup, such as Holland and Portugal.

The matches will be held at 12 different venues in Brazil. These cities are Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Salvador, Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Natal, Manaus, Fortaleza, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Cuiaba, and Curitiba.

You can wager on a wide an assortment of World Cup 2014 and qualifying activities. For example you can make online bets during the qualifying rounds on the half-time and final scores, the winning margin, leading scorers, scorers in games, the times of goals, penalty kick misses and goals, who will receive a yellow or red card, and so on. We will update this page with more world cup predictions of these kind of bets.

Live betting is also available. You can also bet on which teams will make the tournament and which ones won’t, as well as who will win it etc. Once the tournament starts, the wagering will be on the individual games and the competition itself. In fact, you can place an online wager on just about anything related to the individual games and the World Cup 2014 tournament, including live betting on matches that are in progress.

When it comes to predictions for top goalscorers, there are many excellent choices at the moment. These include Wayne Rooney and Darren Bent of England, David Villa and Fernando Torres of Spain, Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben of Holland, Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez of Argentina, Miroslav Klose of Germany, and Didier Drogba of Ivory Coast.

However, with the 2014 World Cup tournament in Brazil being three years way, it’s a good idea to keep close tabs on all of the qualifying games and goal scorers to see which players are in the squad and who’s in top goal scoring form.