overbet favourites

my explanation for this would be twofold, that the world cup attracts far more casual punters from around the world who have little concept of value/probability and secondly the margin between all teams is not that great in reality compared to how they are perceived and presented in the media which is kind of star-struck

england being favs v germany was the biggest shocker ive seen so far

In my opinion nobody takes enough interest in world cup history, everybody just looks at current form, Germany were discounted by nearly all the pundits at the start but look at their record:
6 finals out the last ten and 11 semi-finals out of the last fifteen world cups, Germany are nearly always a factor in this tournament.

or the opposite no moves - people see names like Brazil, Spain etc and assume they will win every match.

Because of the history...

Although funnily Spain always feck up in WCs

Every favourite a loser so far in the 1/4s
Spain not looking so easy also

nice after timing happy .
rofl.

i've been betting nearly every outsider and or the draw but thank you for your very original contribution, preacher man

of course one other very big reason which goes some way to explaining the results, especially in the qualifying groups, is the ball itself and it is a big, big plus factor in favour of germany winning the whole tournament

the ball was used in scotland for one of the cup finals and there was no problem with it. i also watched a few german games  and there was also no problems.
its a combination of the ball and the conditions that is causing the problems ie altitude etc . so i dont think the germans have had any advantage by having used the ball unless they have started playing games at altitude in the bundeslig.

Jabulani idely regarded as very "unusual" in its performance.

Germans played more than anyone with it.

Of course it's a factor. They may well have won the WC without it but it certainly helps to be the most familiar team with what is regarded the oddest ball of recent internaional tournaments.

*widely

It's performance is exaggerated by altitude but it is significantly different even without it.

If you are on £100,000 a week and you are no good you want excuses.