Will History Repeat itself?

Ask most of my friends and they will tell you that I often look at statistics and patterns and the World Cup is often oozing with both. On the other hand, this World Cup in South Africa has seen more trends/patterns being broken rather than continuing. With three of the four remaining teams left in the World Cup playing in UEFA, the likelihood of a European Team finally winning the Trophy outside of Europe seems very likely. We can't forget that this is the first World Cup that the host team (South Africa) has failed to go beyond the group stage.

Another broken trend: this is the first World Cup that ends in a 0 (excluding 1950 which was only the fourth ever World Cup Final) where the final four teams were not previous Winners (1970 = Brazil, Italy, West Germany, Uruguay & 1990 = West Germany, Argentina, Italy, England). In the past, there has always been at least one team to finish in the top four that has never won the title before.

As you can see, there are a lot of patterns when looking at the World Cup and there are two more in particular that should be worth noting.

The first revolves around all four of the remaining teams. The last time a team lost a match in the group stage and went on to win the World Cup was 1978's Argentina; they lost a meaningless match against Italy (at that point both teams were already advancing to the next stage)before going on to lift the trophy. Since then, every team that has won the World Cup has along the way either won or drawn their matches. With that trend, the likely winner of this World Cup would have to be The Netherlands who are the only team without a blemish on their record. (We could also view the Dutch as playing at home considering the historical connection they have with South Africa)

But the other interesting statistic and the one that this Post is about, is the connection Germany and Serbia have in World Cup matches. For the following, we are looking at all iterations of both countries (eg. West Germany, FSR Yugoslavia, FS Yugoslavia and Serbia & Montenegro) as FIFA still connects West Germany's matches to Germany and Yugoslavia's matches to Serbia.

• 1954 - Quarter-finals - Yugoslavia v West Germany 0:2 - Germany Wins World Cup
• 1958 - Quarter-finals - West Germany v Yugoslavia 1:0 - Germany finishes 4th
• 1962 - Quarter-finals - West Germany v Yugoslavia 0:1 - Yugoslavia finishes 4th
• 1966 - Yugoslavia fails to reach World Cup - Germany Loses in Final to England
• 1970 - Yugoslavia fails to reach World Cup - Germany finishes 3rd
• 1974 - Second Round Group Stage - Yugoslavia v West Germany 0:2 - Germany Wins World Cup
• 1978 - Yugoslavia fails to reach World Cup - Germany does not progress past the 2nd Round
• 1982 - Both teams reach World Cup but do not meet - Germany loses in Final to Italy
• 1986 - Yugoslavia fails to reach World Cup - Germany loses in Final to Argentina
• 1990 - Group Stage - West Germany v Yugoslavia 4:1 - Germany Wins World Cup
• 1994 - Yugoslavia is banned from the Tournament - Germany loses in Quarter-finals to Bulgaria
• 1998 - Group Stage - Germany v Yugoslavia 2:2 - Germany loses in Quarter-finals to Croatia
• 2002 - Yugoslavia fails to reach World Cup - Germany loses in Final to Brazil
• 2006 - Both Teams (Yugoslavia is now Serbia & Montenegro) reach World Cup but do not meet - Germany finishes 3rd
• 2010 - Group Stage - Germany v Serbia 0:1 - Germany TBD

At present, these two nations have met seven times with Germany winning four of those matches. Of those four victories, they have gone on to win the World Cup Three times, with the only blemish being in 1958 when the Germans lost to hosts Sweden in the Semis. Germany has only ever won the World Cup when they have defeated Yugoslavia en-route, as evidence with losses in the Finals in 1966, 1982, 1986 and 2002. In three of the four times Germany has reached the finals and lost, Yugoslavia failed to reach the World Cup.

Now with these two nations having met a few weeks ago, the Serbs recorded their first win against the Germans in a World Cup match in over 50 years; what does this mean for Germany and the quest for glory? If the trend is to continue, the Germans should either lose their upcoming Semi-final match against Spain or in the Finals to either The Netherlands or Uruguay. Or could we see this, like so many other trends, being broken? The answer to our question could be a few days away.