The five time World Cup Winners and current World Cup holders, Brazil may be the favourites to win the World Cup for a record sixth time and add another star to their chest but here's why they won't.

World Cup Statistics
If Brazil are given a 13% chance to win the World Cup, that leaves an 87% chance for someone else.

Who Can Beat Brazil?
If people start off with that attitude, Brazil are already a goal up.

I agree that in the knock out stages, Brazil will be 'hard to beat'. But, who said anyone has to 'beat' Brazil for them not to win the World Cup in 2006.

Here's How It's Done
The only realistic way to knock Brazil out of the World Cup is for the three teams in their group to 'gang up' on them, so to speak.

If all three teams force Brazil into a draw, that would leave the Brazilians unbeaten but with a bad chance of progressing to the next round; especially if both Australia and Croatia beat Japan.

Or Australia could beat Japan; Japan could beat Croatia; and Croatia could beat Australia. This scenario, assuming all three drew with Brazil, would leave Australia, Japan and Croatia all on four points (having lost a game each) and the 'undefeated' World Champions last in the table with 3 points.

Can The Gang of Three Do It?

I believe they can, but Croatia, Australia and Japan need to believe it too.

They don't really need to do an intensive course on Positive Mental Attitude to get the right results; they've already done it before.

Brazil vs Croatia:
Brazil and Croatia have only met once; a friendly in Split on August 17th, 2005. The game ended (1:1) with both goals coming in the first half.

Brazil vs Australia:
Brazil and Australia have met five times; three times in the Confederations Cup and twice in the Australia Bicentenary Gold Cup, in July 1988, where Romario scored all the goals in both wins against Australia: (1:0) in the group stage and (2:0) in the final match.

While Australia might want to forget the (0:6) defeat to Brazil in the 1997 Confederations Cup Final in Riyadh, Australia did come out on top in the 2001 tournament in Ulsan, beating Brazil (1:0) on the 9th of June; in the third-place match.

Japan vs Brazil:
Of the seven previous encounters between Japan and Brazil, Japan have failed to win one of them; although they drew the last two Confederations Cup meetings: (2:2) in Cologne, on 22nd June 2005; and (0:0) in Ibaraki, on 4th June 2001.

Japan are also managed by Zico, who knows a thing or two about Brazil.

End Result
Brazil don't need to be beaten in the 2006 World Cup Finals but with three draws during the group stage, they would be out of the competition; leaving that 87% chance for someone else to lift the World Cup trophy in Berlin on July 9th, 2006.

Now if only we knew who that would be.

Make your World Cup Predictions (before the opening game kicks off).