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No surprise that Brazil is the overwhelming favorite heading into next month's World Cup, but that's only if you listen to coaches, players, media, fans and bettors.

Trust the banks, and it's all about Italy.

The Italians, seeking their fourth World Cup title and their first since 1982, are the choice of moneymen, sort of, to capture the trophy July 9 in Berlin.

Dutch bank ABN AMRO first weighed in back in March, releasing a ``Soccernomics'' report that -- far from predicting an Italian triumph -- asserted that, among the Europeans, Italy most needs the championship to boost its lagging economy.

Switzerland's UBS Wealth Management Research brokerage firm has gone further, using ``scientific methods comparable to those used by experts to make economic and financial-market forecasts'' to gauge each team's chances for success and predict the results of every match.

Led by chief economist Klaus Wellershoff, UBS calculated socio-economic statistics -- population, birth rates, percentage of urban dwellers and so forth -- and looked at FIFA's often laughable rankings (U.S. fourth?) before settling on history (five countries have won 15 of 17 titles), locale (only one non-European team, Brazil in 1958, has won the Cup in Europe), the number of outstanding players on each team (based on Pele's 2004 list of the 120 best living players) and an Elo rating (based on physicist Arpad Elo's chess ranking, assessing quality of results) to assess the contenders.

The finding: Italy beats Brazil in the final.

UBS's model, adjusted for each round, does not treat the United States kindly. The Americans, who meet Italy on June 17 in Kaiserslautern, fail to reach the knockout phase, finishing behind the Italians and Czech Republic in Group E. Mexico gets through, winning Group D, but loses to the Netherlands in the second round.

Italy beats Argentina and Brazil tops the Dutch in the semifinals.

None of this appears far-fetched. Italy, no matter its quality, knows how to win. It beat a superior Brazil side en route to its '82 title and was the likelier winner in the '94 title game at the Rose Bowl before penalty kicks spurred Brazil's celebration.

The Brazilians are everybody's choice -- except, apparently, bankers -- to triumph, but Italy is among the teams that could win if Brazil doesn't, along with Holland, Argentina, France, maybe Germany or the Czechs, maybe England (before Wayne Rooney got hurt).

``There's a hierarchy at the World Cup,'' Italy coach Marcello Lippi noted in an Associated Press interview last week. ``If you go anywhere in the world -- even on the moon, Mars, or anywhere else in the galaxy -- and you ask, `Who is going to win the World Cup?' everyone will respond, `Brazil.' At least everyone that knows about soccer.

``Then there are seven or eight teams with the hope of winning. Brazil is the big favorite, but we also have a shot.''

--Inzaghi for Italy? Lippi is bringing 29 players into this week's pre-roster selection camp, including inspirational AC Milan striker Filippo Inzaghi, 32, who returns to the Azzurri for the first time in nearly three years. He has scored 12 Serie A goals and four in six UEFA Champions League games this season.

``It's very emotional to be back in these colors,'' Inzaghi said. ``Just putting on the uniform is something special.''

Inzaghi, Livorno's Cristiano Lucarelli, rising Empoli star Francesco Tavano and Udinese's Vincenzo Iaquinta are battling for one, at most two, forward spots on Lippi's roster. Assured are Juventus' Alessandro Del Piero, AC Milan's Alberto Gilardino, Fiorentina's Luca Toni and AS Roma's Francesco Totti, who is returning from a fractured ankle.

--Real trouble: Real Salt Lake is riding an 18-game winless streak, but things are worse off the field. The club's bid to build a stadium in Sandy, Utah, crashed last week when Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon, in the wake of leaked documents detailing the club's financial struggles, quashed a proposal to use $35 million in hotel taxes toward purchasing land and making infrastructure improvements.

Talk followed that owner Dave Checketts, who publicly confirmed his intention to build in Sandy, might move the club, perhaps to St. Louis -- home of hockey's Checketts-owned Blues.

Checketts, who says he has pledges of $100 million to build the stadium and related facilities, said he will continue to seek $45 million in public funding. ``We are a long, long, long, long long way from throwing in the towel on Real Salt Lake and its existence here.''

--Who's in town? Pele will appear Saturday afternoon at Universal CityWalk, greeting fans and taking part in a kids' soccer clinic.

It's all prelude to the World Cup -- four games, including the final, will be shown on CityWalk's big screen.

The Pele event runs 12:30-1:30 p.m., with the clinic later in the afternoon.

--Spot kicks: Defender Cory Gibbs, headed to the World Cup, will join England's Charlton Athletic next season if he can gain a work permit. Gibbs played this spring for ADO Den Haag on loan from fellow Dutch club Feyenoord Rotterdam. ... Brazil, of course, won the first Soccer-Tennis U.S. Invitational on Sunday at UCLA's L.A. Tennis Center, beating Mexico 15-7, 5-15, 15-9 in the final. Brazil's trio: 1994 World Cup stars Aldair and Paulo Sergio with Silas. ... American referee Kevin Stott (with linesmen Chris Strickland and Gregory Barkey) is on the World Cup standby list.

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Photo:

Marcello Lippi looks to lead Group E favorite Italy to its fourth World Cup championship.

Alberto Pizzoli/Getty Images