Hi

In an attempt to place a winning bet, I would like to know the outcome
of the World Cup.

Only dead-certainties, please.

Page 36 of the official FIFA rules of the game describe how the winner
of any given match will be determined. This link to the Federation
Internationale De Football Association will bring you to a
downloadable PDF file of the rules, or "laws", as they call them:

http://a1801.g.akamai.net/f/1801/2004/3d/www.fifa.com/fifa/pub/lotg/Laws01en1-39.pdf

I will summarize the laws as, "The team that scores the most points in
a match wins."

This is a dead certainty, so I advise you to place a bet on the "team
that scores the most points in the final match." This team will win
the World Cup. If you can find somebody to take this bet (legally),
please inform me through an "Answer Clarification" so I can get some
of that action.

Hi - I admire the way that you worked toegther to produce such a
sublime result. Of course, when I realised that morris's message was
the decrypting key for the answer, held in philipp's message, I was
delighted.
Especially, as England were always my favourites to win too - Thanks
guys for  not letting the cat out of the bag - I couldn't have got
such good odds if you'd just come out and said it plain and simple!!

Markalexanderludwig,

Morris clearly stated the ground rules.
To help you on your further efforts, let me show you the answer can be
derived mathematically. The following are the years Germany won the
World Cup:

- 1954 (in Switzerland)
- 1974 (in Germany)
- 1990 (in Italy)

After 54, it took Germany 20 years to win again.
After 74, it took Germany 16 years to win again.

We can see a series of
- 20, 16
which can only be continued meaningfully by assuming a subtraction of
4:
- 16 minus 4 equals 12
- 1990 plus 12 equals 2002

We can find further proof in the fact that "Germany" contains 7
letters:
G-E-R-M-A-N-Y
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The year is 2002:
2 + 0 + 0 + 2 = 4

4 plus 7 equals 11, the number of players in a team.

All just coincidence? Likely not. Therefore, the only logical
conclusion is:
The World Cup 2002 Winner will be Germany.


Hope this helps!

The comment added by mark is grossly un-understandable.

I would bet on Brazil in the 1'st and Italy 2'nd

I am reminded of Socrates' last words, "I drank what?"