The World Cup is now less than 50 days away and in a blink of an eye we will be watching 32 teams doing battle for the trophy. {readmorelink}Read more{/readmorelink}

There has been plenty of talk in the local press about Bafana Bafana and their buildup to the competition and opinions range from “we can win this thing” to “we will be lucky to score a goal”, so perhaps the best place to look for an unbiased view is the bookmakers who make a living from being right more often than they are wrong.

First up there is the overall market where Bafana are given pretty close to no chance and are priced anywhere from 66/1 to 150/1 depending o where you shop. Frankly I see little point in throwing money at the triple figure quotes though and if you do want to get a patriotic rand or two on our boys you would be better off looking at some of the exotic markets on offer.

They line up in Group A alongside France who are group favourites at 11/10, Mexico 33/10 and Uruguay 7/2. If you fancy they can finish above this bunch then there is 6/1 on offer, a nice price but not exactly an encouraging message from the bookmakers.

Two teams qualify from each group of course and let’s face it we would be a very happy nation if Bafana snuck into the last 16 on goal difference. Here France 3/10 and Mexico 8/10 are predictably short with Uruguay 12/10 and Bafana a juicy 2/1 once again suggesting that the odds setters are not holding out much hope for a home town fairytale run.

Another option would be to back the stage at which Bafana will be eliminated. An early exit is the firm market leader here at 9/20 and there is 3/1 we go out in the last 16 and 8/1 we extend our run into the quarter finals.

Of course there will also be a range of markets on every match and there are already prices up on the opening games. The hosts are 22/10 to get us off to a dream start against Mexico priced at 13/10 with the draw a 22/10 chance on June 11 2010.

The odds are stacked against them but I can’t help but feel a lazy R100 on Bafana to qualify at 2/1 may pay dividends.

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 22nd of April 2010.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and presents a sports betting radio show every Thursday night from 22h00 – 22h30 on 1485AM Radio Today or Channel 169 of the DSTV Audio Bouquet.

You can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/brentgraham or get on his mailing list by dropping him a line at brent@goodforthegame.co.za