Several American TV broadcasts have labeled the French run to the World Cup Final as a major “surprise,” and analysts such as Nick Webster (who picked the mighty three lions of England to win the World Cup), Julie Foudy and Alexi Lalas have expressed shock over the past two weeks that France has been able to beat any top teams. In fact on Fox Soccer Channel, 4 of 6 “Experts” polled prior to the start of Germany 2006 picked England to win the World Cup!

As a function of self promotion for our website, I invite our readers to review the predictions made prior to the World Cup by three of our commentators on this website. Both Zizzou and myself picked France to win the World Cup, and Gregg picked France to make the semifinals.