The knockout rounds are here. 14 out of 16 of my picks made it through. However my bracket was crushed by the France v. Spain match-up in the first round. The round of 16 is missing the United States and containing a team that shouldn’t even be in the World Cup, Switzerland. But the Swiss-born president of the Swiss based FIFA decided to hand down a light punishment to the Swiss team after their brawl in a World Cup qualifier with Turkey (highlighted by a Swiss player kicking a Turkish coach from behind as he ran off the field).

Regardless, the World Cup is down to 16 teams. Only one African and one CONCACAF team remain and the surprise this year is the first Oceania team to ever make the round of 16, Australia. Sadly, no Asian team made it as South Korea bowed out in a game underlined by a horrible call that benefited *gasp* Switzerland. Similar to this, Ukraine beat an African team, Tunisia, on a very questionable penalty kick. Interesting enough Sepp Blatter today was deflecting focus toward Graham Poll’s 3 yellow cards, which didn’t actually effect the outcome of the game. No World Cup has ever been won by any team outside of South America and Europe. The odds this year heavily favor a repeat of this.

10 of 16 remaining teams are from Europe. The strongest teams remaining outside of Europe: Ghana, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina have been lined-up against each other in the round of 16. This leaves a very high chance that only 2 of the remaining 8 countries will be from outside Europe and the possibility of all-European semi-finals and final. The long and drawn out European World Cup qualifying system weeds out any team that might provide a cup upset such as a Turkey, or an Israel, or a Greece and the way that the World Cup has been officiated makes you wonder if the 2006 World Cup isn’t really just a glorified Euro 2006 plus Brazil & Argentina.

But there’s not much that can be done now. So I'll just sit back and hope for a Ghana vs. Australia final.