Brazil will be runner up

Jun 4, 2010 09:45 GMT  ·  By

Electronic Arts is pushing on with its tradition of using its virtual sports franchises to predict the result of important real life competitions, saying that the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa will be won by the European nation of Spain, which will defeat South Americans Brazil, three goals to one, in the finals. The result was predicted using the EA Sports football engine which powers the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa game, now on sales for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.

EA Sports is also saying that Golden Boot trophy for best scorer will go to Spain's David Villa, who will manage to get seven goals to his name, while the Golden Ball winner will be Brazilian Kaka. Apparently, the first team to actually leave the competition will be the host, South Africa.

In the finals, Brazil manages to strike first, with Felipe Melo scoring in the 30th minute. Spain equalized just before half time when a goalkeeper error left David Villa with too much space. He scored again in the 61st minute, from a cross provided by Iniesta. Cesc Fabregas sealed Spain's victory near the end of the 90 minutes, from a counterattacking action.

The third place game is predicted by EA Sports to be a closely fought affair between Argentina and England, with the European nation managing a two to one victory. In the semifinals, England managed to hold Brazil for 90 minutes, but lost on penalties while Spain was better than Argentina by one goal.

The Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany are the teams that lost out in the quarter finals while Nigeria, Australia, the United States, Mexico, Slovakia, Chile, Cameroon and Portugal manage to get into the last 16 phase.

EA Sports has proved quite adept at predicting the results of events like the SuperBowl or the NBA Finals, but the World Cup is a much more chaotic affair, so expect the surprise factor to shake the EA Sports predictions up when the real world event begins in less than one week.