Many bookmakers are pricing England’s chances of lifting the FIFA World Cup at 12/1*.  Betfair though are currently offering ever so slightly better odds of England winning the first football World Cup to be held on African soil at 25/2*.

England were saved embarrassment in their opening World Cup Qualifying game against Andorra by Joe Cole coming on as substitute and scoring both goals in the 2-0 win. 

As the team gear up to take on Croatia in Zagreb, bookmakers see the Croatians as beating England again.  Croatia are 7/5* with bet365, Boylesports, Sportingbet and VCBet to get three points in Wednesday night’s match with England priced at 9/4* with Bluesquare, Paddy Power and 888Sport.  You will get odds of 21/10* with a number of bookmakers including ExtraBet if you wish to gamble that the result will be a draw.

Despite Croatia topping the European Championship Qualifying group that England were in, England are still slight favourites to gain revenge and win World Cup Qualifying Group 6.  England are priced at evens* with several bookmakers with Betfair offering a betting exchange of 13/11*.  Slaven Bilic’s outfit are given odds of 13/8* with Betdaq.  The only other threat in the group is Ukraine who had a good World Cup campaign in Germany in 2006.  They are given a 6/1* shot to top the group by Bluesquare. 

For England to qualify from the group bet365 are offering odds of 2/7*.  If England do the unthinkable and fail to qualify for a World Cup after also missing out on the European Championship finals, bet365 are offering 5/2*. 

Wayne Rooney is favourite to be top goalscorer in qualifying with odds of 11/4* with Totesport.

Scotland had a brave effort in trying to qualify for the European Championships and even though they had impressive wins over world champions Italy and runners-up France they failed to make the finals.  Their standing in the game has improved but they haven’t appeared in the World Cup finals since 1998.  This time the strongest team in their group are the Dutch who are favourites to win the group at 1/3* with Betfair.  It looks like Scotland will battle it out with Norway for the runners-up spot to qualify for the play-off.  The Norwegians are second favourites to win the group with a price of 13/2* with Paddy Power.  Scotland are the third favourites at 7/1* also with Paddy Power.

For Scotland to actually qualify for the World Cup as either group winner or as runner-up and then winning their play-off they are a 9/4* chance with bet365.  For the Scots not to qualify they are priced at 1/3*.

Even though we are a still a long way off the World Cup finals in South Africa in 2010, bookmakers perhaps inevitably see Brazil as early favourites to lift their sixth World Cup.  Argentina are second favourites with European Champions Spain currently priced as a good 9/1* bet as third favourites with the Betfair betting exchange.  England are somewhat surprisingly installed as sixth favourites.

    *Odds are correct as of time of writing.

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