Asymmetrical Information

Well, actually you could make the case that Italy was a bigger loser than the French in WWII. They were getting their butts handed to them by the Brits and then the Yugoslavs until the Germans rescued them. Then the got occupied by the Germans, just like the French. So perhaps the prediction system still holds.

Nah, technically (and what is deciding a game by penalty kicks if not a technicality), France lost twice and Italy didn't lose once. The Italians were better at switching to the winning side in both wars.

I order it like this:

Lost Twice
France
Tunisia

Lost Once (by ascending order of length of belligerence)
Netherlands
Croatia
Serbia
Iran
Poland
Ukraine
Japan
Germany

Wash
Italy

Neutrals (by descending order of Axis sympathy)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Saudi Arabia
Portugal

Minor Allies (by descending order of date of declaration of war)
Argentina
Ecuador
Paraguay
Mexico
Brazil
Costa Rica

Major Allies
Australia
England
United States

Wild Cards
Angola
Ivory Coast
Ghana
Korea
Togo
Trinidad and Tobago

Well, actually you could make the case that Italy was a bigger loser than the French in WWII. They were getting their butts handed to them by the Brits and then the Yugoslavs until the Germans rescued them.

I guess you could say that the Greeks kicked Italy's @ss as well. In fact, Italy lost to pretty much everybody except maybe the major military power of Ethiopia.

What throws off the system is the fact that the United States was the biggest winner of World War II but also a minor soccer power.

Peter, I think that goes along with the joke...

Did anyone else notice that USSR does not appear in AT's list? And Ukraine does -- despite the fact that there wasn't such a nation-state at the onset of WWII. Does that qualify as biased reading of history or what...

Quite frankly, I consider every country in the Soviet occupation zone along with the USSR itself to be net losers of WWII and everybody else net winners. The former ended up with a system of government arguably worse than Hitler's (of course USSR started off with same).

...Max...

Max, those were the countries in the 2006 fifi tournament. My list is strictly based on points and statistics. If you're looking for deep historical analysis and philosophical meaning, well, this isn't golf.

Also, I left out Czech(oslovakia), which should, unfairly, be at the top of the second group.

Survivor Bias

Have we not learned that in war, no one wins? So everybody lost WWII, and in the World Cup, we're all winners.

There are people to whom that might actually make sense!

I'm thinking Italy should be in the "lost twice" column, too. After being beaten by the allies, surrendering, and switching sides, the Germans occupied the northern part of the country, disarmed the government, and instituted the Italian Social Republic under Mussolini. The Italian Social Republic was then beaten. Again.

Actually, if you count the German reaction to Italy's initial surrender as a defeat for the new pro-ally Italian government, and it's replacement by the ISR, Italy lost three times. Twice to the allies and once to the Germans.

That has to be some sort of record for a single war.

I'd express it this way: a country's skill in faking injuries to get penalty kicks during a soccer game will be in inverse proportion to their skill at warmaking. Flopping around on the ground holding onto a body part that didn't even make contact gets a soldier nowhere.

As has been pointed out, Italy's only actual fighting success in WWII was against a country where spears were still a common weapon.

Feynman and Coulter's Love Child

The funny thing is how easy that is to picture.

Dale: Too funny. I was going to think Italy lost twice, but you really could make the case for it being three.

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