All bets are off! The predictions were very strongly for Brazil in the final, but 2010 has served up a feast of remarkably unpredictable football with no shortage of drama.

With any luck, among the top takeouts from this edition of the world's greatest sporting spectacle should be:

1.       Soccer is wonderfully unpredictable. Probably because it is that hard to kick a ball into the back of the net.

2.       It really is time to introduce goal line technology. It's there. Humans are notoriously prone to error. Worse than that, we've seen that sometimes those errors are deliberate; let's reduce the chances, just because we can.

3.       Octopi called Paul are adept at predicting the outcomes of German football matches.

4.       The Lord works in mysterious ways.

5.       Most best: South Africa is up to successfully hosting any sporting event. Yes, people, this is the real deal, a sports event on the most massive scale. Glitches? Sure. But just look at how they've been handled.

That brings us to the next order of business. With the first semifinal due to take place tomorrow between Spain and Germany (and notwithstanding Paul's predictions for the outcome) we are on the inevitable slope to the tournament's magnificent conclusion. There is talk of post-football blues and a country that will slide into depression, but that seems unlikely. We like to believe there will be post-partum satisfaction at a job well done, national pride and the unity which we last saw back in 1995 when the Springboks lofted the Webb Ellis trophy.

More than that, we'd like to see the calls for the 2020 Olympics intensifying. After all, we can do it alright.