The World-Cup qualification phase is behind us and all the usual suspects capable of winning this mega event, made it to South Africa. Also, all the former World Champions will compete; Uruguay held off a scare from Costa Rica and France eliminated a very unfortunate Irish team due to an incredible hand play by Thierry Henry.

The international football bookmakers rank reigning European Champ Spain together with 5-time winner Brazil as the top of the list with odds around 5.50 (9/2). These two are followed by England (7.50 or 13/2), Argentina (10.00 or 9/1) and Germany at 13.00 (12/1).

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The football bookmakers would currently pay out 14.00 (13/1) for the Netherlands and an always very dangerous Italy. The Top 10 list is completed by France and Portugal with odds around 17.00 (16/1) and the Ivory Coast at 25.00 (24/1).

Behind these 10 top contenders, matters quickly become kind of improbable. While Chile, Serbia, Ghana and Paraguay with sportsbetting odds of around 40.00-60.00 (39/1 – 59/1) might have a very slim chance to win this event, behind these four, there are no less than nine more teams coming it at odds of around 100-to-1, these are: USA, Cameroon, Denmark, Mexico, Nigeria, Australia, Greece, Uruguay and host nation South Africa.

Anyone of these teams winning the FIFA Football World-Cup 2010 would certainly be a major sensation by itself, but if any of “the rest” actually wins it all, then that would rank as one of the most stunning “Cinderella”-victories in sports history for all time. Here the “candidates”:

Switzerland: around 150-to-1
Japan and Slovenia: up to 250-to-1
South Korea, Slovakia and Algeria: 300-to-1
New Zealand, Honduras and North Korea: up to 2000-to-1 (!!)

The FIFA World Cup Final Draw will be held on December 4 in Cape Town (19.00 local time/18.00 CET). Once the draw is complete, some teams winning odds might either go up or down, of course, depending on the group opponents. Especially at World-Cups in the past, there were rather “easy-breezy” groups for the favourites, but also groups containing 4 really strong contenders.