Yep, it’s that time again, the four-yearly celebration of human sporting prowess and the sponsorship of sporting events by massive multi-national corporations selling unhealthy products: the World Cup (of football). If you’re a Finn you might have missed the build-up to this event as much of the country has recently been engaged in watching the ice hockey team fall in their world cup at the almost-final hurdle after a couple of solid displays and some truly godawful ones – pretty much the same thing English football fans have to look forward to over the next few weeks. As of last week, you can watch 2-3 games on YLE 2 every day for a month. Yay!

For most of June and the beginning of July, 32 teams will compete in South Africa for the right to hold aloft the FIFA World Cup Trophy™. Alongside well-known hopefuls there are some lesser-known lights amongst the competitors. Here’s our unofficial, and inaccurate, guide to the World Cup’s dark horses.

ALGERIA. Obsessed with their more-popular neighbours and not very good, they’re easily underestimated and so will probably beat England 1-0 in the group stages.

CAMEROON. Fun to watch and easy to like, the Cameroonians show amazing athletic prowess coupled with oft-hilarious attempts at dribbling badly towards the goal from the halfway line. Potentially second round material but not in an easy group.

DENMARK. The only Nordic team to make it to the finals, the Danes have in the past managed to cobble together some good sides but this isn’t one of them. Hold an advantage in that no-one can understand what they say.

ENGLAND. Everyone knows England, right? Won in 1966 and have spent the last 40 years going on about it. Their fans moan, the players moan, and they’ve exited 5 out of 8 recent major tournaments on penalty kicks.

GHANA. On their day they can beat anybody, and can match any team man-for-man in speed and stamina, if not skill.

GREECE. Used to suck before they won the European Championships in 2004 by building a brick wall with barbed wire and machine-gun nests in front of their goal and inviting opponents to try and get through, then scoring a headed goal from a set piece in the last twenty minutes. Now they suck again.

HONDURAS. Ruled CONCACAF in 1981, done nothing since. Go underdogs!

IVORY COAST. Depend almost entirely on Chelsea’s Didier Drogba, who has an amazing ability to make defenders soil themselves by running at them and staring them out. Since he’s potentially out injured, however, don’t expect much from these guys.

NEW ZEALAND. Attending by virtue of success in the world’s worst football confederation, Oceania. Will surely be happy just to be in South Africa for a week or so while eating small hairy fruit.

NORTH KOREA. Almost certain to be knocked out immediately before bussing their team off to some gulag somewhere while telling the country they’ve just ripped apart Brazil 4-0 in the finals.

SOUTH KOREA. Desperate to beat North Korea (and vice versa) on the grounds of one-up-statesmanship. Enthusiastic fans, entertaining to watch, defence like a sieve.

FINLAND. Errr...better luck next time.

Nick Barlow