Be ready for 2010's headbutt

For two thousand and ten years, a large part of humanity has been measuring time according to this particular calendar, and the custom of letting go of the old and welcoming the new with rituals including forecasts and predictions is a widespread practice nowadays around the globe regardless of religions, beliefs or kabalah convictions.
Football is the world's game par excellence, and as it has its fair share of quasi-religious faithful and a fair dose of superstitious rituals, it makes sense that as the New Year dawns the inclination to summarize the year that has gone - best goals, top players, most dramatic moments - will come hand in hand with the need to foretell the unraveling of new dramas over the coming twelve months.
Several factors can impact the business of football forecasts - if we take the Champions League for instance, the most prestigious club tournament in Europe, we start January with a more informed sense of probability. The original groups now reduced, the usual suspects remain strong contenders: from England only three (Arsenal, Chelsea and of course Manchester United with only Liverpool eliminated), with the eternally strong Barcelona also in the running.
As 2010 is a World Cup year betting houses around the globe will also be taking odds on the winner and runners up for this most prestigious of international fixtures. Again, little suggests that the traditional Big Ones will not be up to usual standard: the likes of Brazil, Italy, and more recently Spain will likely be favourites, while the incentive for at least one African team to excel is non-negligible . The home advantage will play a role, and as the tournament progresses and the participants thin out, any remaining African squad will become the 'home' favourite: we are therefore prone to see perhaps Ivory Coast remain in play until the later stages.
But what is football forecasting about? What factors are we to consider when playing this informed guessing game? Clearly, there are many criteria worthy of consideration: number of superstars, calibre of individual talents, track record of managers, history and tradition of club/nation all matter enormously. Hence Didier Drogba's Chelsea as well as his Ivory Coast are worth a mention given that Drogba is on a superb run. The African Cup of Nations this month will no doubt pan out a series of talents and alchemies which the connoisseurs will note and use to inform further predictions.
Lionel Messi's Barcelona is my favourite for the Champion's League, not just because of him but because of the total sum of the parts of the team and the exponential effect they cumulatively have on the mechanisms of the whole. But for Lionel Messi's Argentina to excel in South Africa the circumstances are not yet given: much has to change in the workings of the national squad and the manager's approach before the expectation of triumph can be truly said to be empirical rather than blinded by desire.
But as a conversation with an avid fan revealed last week, on a flight back from Abu Dabhi where he followed his beloved Estudiantes de La Plata for the World Club Cup, there is desire too. "We were two minutes away from being world champions," the fan said with heartfelt pride.
This is the point at which football ceases to be a foreseeable scientific calculable mathematical proposition and the magic, suspense filled unpredictability which seduces us all steps in: the power of the last few minutes can always, always, override the weight of history.
For some it is a game of tactics and strategy - but for all the preparation with which the game kicks off, the whistle blows and we are all in position: sitting on a lucky chair, wearing the right shirt, crossing ourselves or kissing the turf, the most real aspect of the game is when that which one of us saw coming will totally turn things around. Be it a last minute decider from Lionel Messi against Estudiantes as 2009 came to a close, or as was the case with Manchester United's Champions League victory over Bayern Munich over a decade ago, when the last minute miracle included two goals, leading Sir Alex Ferguson to pronounce the most insightful adage of them all: "Football, eh? Bloody hell" .
The instant that we could not know of, somehow always steal the show. It could be Zidane's headbutt - why not? The final game, the climax of the event, the whole world watching, and it all rests on an impulse, a single moment, a human response... the unplanned, unforeseeable surprise: that is what is truly loveable about the game.
So, for 2010, however arbitrary our time measurement, I forecast the breathtaking ability of the game to stun us with that which we could truly never have imagined. The ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes. That much we know. Everything else is unknown. It is the power of the unknown that we must trust.