A Look At Three Of The Early Favourites For The FIFA 2014 World Cup

It’s just under 100 days until the 2014 World Cup kicks off in Brazil and already the excitement is building for what promises to be one of the most memorable tournaments of all time.

All the big hitters have qualified from the group stages so we’re going to take a closer look at three of the early per-tournament favourites and bring you their latest World Cup odds in case you fancy taking a punt on one of them bringing home the trophy.

Brazil

No better place to start than with the host nation, Brazil. The Samba Boys haven’t been at their best in recent years but they cruised through qualifying and as they prepare to get the competition under way against Croatia on June the 12th, it’s no surprise the five-time winners are considered as the bookmakers favourites.

You can currently get odds of around 13/4 for Brazil to win the World Cup outright and as well as having a passionate home crowd backing them all the way, the Brazilians also have a major advantage over their European counterparts as the players will be acclimatised to the South American climate, which could be a huge advantage this summer.

Germany

The Germans are understandably among the favourites to lift the World Cup as German football is enjoying something of an upward trend right now. Bayern Munich are the current World Club Champions and with a squad bursting with quality and experience, you’d be mad to discount them. Bookies are offering odds of around 11/2 for Joachim Loews men to win the tournament, and if the likes of Mesut Ozil, Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger can step up, I wouldn’t put it past them going all the way.

Spain

The defending champions have swept all before them in recent years but they head into the World Cup being considered as something of an outsider by some. Bookmakers are offering very tempting odds of 7/1 for the Spanish to retain the trophy, but those odds are likely to get slashed if they can navigate a tricky group that includes Holland, Chile and Australia to reach the knockout stages.

The Spain squad is arguably the most talented of all those that will be in Brazil this summer, so I wouldn’t be discounting Vincente Del Bosque’s men just yet. They still have the likes of Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Brazilian-born striker Diego Costa to call upon, so if you think they can get out of their group without any trouble then Spain’s odds looks extremely tempting right now.