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I hardly think winning in 1934, 1938 or 1982 has any impact on present day results. Even claiming that the 2006 win has much bearing is a stretch since they have a different head coach and only 4 of the same players.

Then England should not be a favorite either.

The favorites are based on the team's recent performance, not on World Cup victories. For instance, the Netherlands have never won a World Cup, but their recent performance prior to this World Cup is undeniably better than either England or Italy, so they are ranked higher.

England were never a favourite. They were a 20/1 going in to the tournament.

Unfortunately for Italy, it did not have very good match records before the world cup, and was thus not in the top 10 of the previous post (http://blog.wolfram.com/2014/06/20/predicting-who-will-win-t...).

Keep in mind that Etienne is French, there might be some bias here given our recent soccer history ;)

indeed ;)