To assist in following the World Cup Finals, now consuming South Africa:
- World Cup finals will debut a new and controversial ball.
- Each finals game is to be accompanied by swarms of tuneless plastic trumpets.
- Commentators, if English-speaking, must mention Maradona’s ‘hand of God’ goal from last century.
- The hosts of World Cup finals will play better than their world ranking will suggest.
- The favourite team of the finals will have an attacking focus, the winning team will have a defensive formation. (This law enacted in the mid-1970s.)
- Football being a professional sport, a number of experts will tally the worth (so-called) of teams such as Argentina, Spain and Italy. No one will bother to do this for Australia.
- There will be at least one tear-filled red-card/yellow-card tragedy: a player booked will recognise that he is thereby ineligible for the next match.
- England will dream of 1966, but experience the same tabloid headlines as usual (‘Shame’, ‘Cup empty again’, ‘England expects … heads to roll’, etc).
- Semi-finals will produce better football than the final.
- Though players will constantly claim a throw-in or corner kick when not warranted, they will still fume in outrage when an important decision goes against them. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s a failure of refereeing.
- Lasting images will be of exquisite skill and of the beautiful game showing off its best moments.