Now that we have made it past the group stage, I perform my World Cup tradition of making a bracket predicting the rest of the tournament. Here's what I came up with:
I think it's quite interesting since I came up with a Semifinals list lacking traditional favorites. In my opinion, it reflects the fact that traditional powerhouses have not performed as well as most people were expecting in this tournament, and I've seen some excellent play from unexpected teams. As a disclaimer, I try to make my judgments based solely on observations of teams during the group stages without context of historical performance, fan base size, etc. It's worked for me with over 90% accuracy the last two World Cups, so let's see if it works for me again!
Some of the key matches that I think have the most potential for upsetting this bracket are Uruguay-Portugal, France-Portugal, Brazil-Mexico, and Brazil-Belgium.
What do you think? Let me know your thoughts below.