You can't win if you haven't been there. Veteran leadership steadies a team. The playoffs are a different animal. Seniors win titles. All these sports clichés underscore the importance of age and experience as two key criteria to making a run in any tournament.

The World Cup is no exception. Anecdotally, everyone remembers the battle of the aged between Italy and France in the 2006 final, which matched two of the tournament's five oldest teams, according to average age. Statistically, this observation holds remarkably true when looking at the last four World Cups, the only ones for which FIFA provides detailed age data.

Throughout the four most recent tournaments, the countries that move on to each round get progressively older. Admittedly, some of these differences are minute. A difference of less than three weeks per player probably isn't the determining factor in which teams advance from the group stage. But a six-month gap between round of 16 teams and finalists is certainly noteworthy.

The trend ends at the final match, where the last four finals have been won by the younger teams, which have been younger by an average of eight months. All of this is something to keep an eye on when rosters are officially announced in the first week of June.

Moving on to look at the experience factor from a country standpoint, the usual suspects are all among the favorites in 2010. Six of Ladbrokes' top eight betting favorites have won a World Cup. The exceptions are reigning European champion Spain and two-time World Cup runner-up Netherlands, who were both perfect in qualifying.

History bears out this logic. In the last 50 years, only 1966 England, 1978 Argentina and 1998 France have won a World Cup for the first time, and all of those countries won on home soil. The last country to win its first title away from home was Brazil in 1958.

Looking at it statistically, over the last four tournaments, the average number of previous World Cup appearances by the remaining countries through each round has increased. Unsurprisingly, this indicates that traditional powers tend to dominate, even if the team is relatively inexperienced. For example, Brazil's 2002 championship team was the eighth-youngest at the tournament, and France didn't even qualify for the 1994 World Cup before winning the 1998 crown.

This is of course heavily impacted by Brazil's two titles and three finals in that time span. But the numbers also reflect the fact that today's powers have seized every final berth since 1966.

As in any other tournament, upsets will always happen at the World Cup. Three of the last four World Cups have produced at least one surprise semifinalist (Turkey and South Korea in 2002, Croatia in 1998, Sweden and Bulgaria in 1994). But the big picture indicates that the big guns are perennial favorites for a reason. Simply put, they have the age and experience necessary to win the World Cup.

Paul Carr is a researcher for the ESPN Stats & Information group.