Predict events in CT, or how Takahashi is spoiling or recycling his story.
(Note that this article was written on April 2012. In the meantime, some predictions indeed became true, sometimes sooner than I thought.

Recycling characters
So, Takahashi is recycling ideas? yeah, and to prove it, let's just take a look at some things we already know. In 1987, the J boy's fight arc was beginning, as you may know (or not) in this arc we discover for the first time foreign characters: Schneider, Pierre... Well, for the first time in the manga anyway. In fact, these characters appeared for the first time in 1985, although a bit different, in the first CT movie: Europa dai kessen. Takahashi then recycled these movie characters in the manga version we know. The same thing happened with other foreign characters, Diaz and Santana first appeared in 1986, in the movie called Sekai dai kessen!! Jr. world cup. In the manga, they respectively appear in 1987 and... 1994. Then again, keep in mind that their overall appearance and abilities are still a bit different.

Recycling story elements
The interesting bit of story behind the last movie I just talked about, is that Roberto is Santana's coach, and Tsubasa is a bit shaken by this, as he is not only playing against Santana, but also his old mentor. A story element that will be exactly the same in the following video game Captain Tsubasa 2: Super striker, as well as in the end of the World Youth arc. The game also had some other elements like a high school tournament in Japan, a World youth, and a surprise guest in the second half of the finals, elements that we can find "recycled" in the World Youth arc again, with only some differences here and there: while the game's mystery guest is Coimbra, the manga's is Natureza, Nankatsu is winning the high school tournament in the game while it's Toho in the manga. Of course those aren't the only elements from the game that we can retrieve in the manga, but the point of the article isn't to list them all, you can try to find them yourself, you'll see it's a bit fun.

Spoiling story elements
The craziest thing an author can do is spoil his own story, and Takahashi actually did it, in 2000, in the one-shot called Captain Tsubasa 2000 Millennium Dream. The one shot is about Japan in the olympic games, and surprise, 5 years later there is indeed an arc on the Olympics starting, called Golden-23. What else can we find on this one-shot? It is revealed that Tsubasa is playing for Barcelona, and while this fact was known since World Youth, we also discover that he's playing with a Rivaldo look-alike player... This also became true in Road to 2002. So how much in this one-shot is actually going to be true? Also, in Road to 2002, Sanae had a dream about Tsubasa and Wakabayashi. While the manga made the emphasis on the club that Tsubasa would join, there were other foreshadowing elements: It was a Champions league, and Takahashi talked some more about it later, but it has yet to happen, anyway more importantly, Tsubasa was wearing the number 10 jersey, and was playing against Wakabayashi in the finals, wearing the Bayern uniform. So, he basically gave away the end of a future champions league arc. Or did he?

Recycling, spoiling... Is good?
"Recycling" and "spoiling" aren't really positive words to use when talking about an author. Recycling basically says that he can't find new ideas, but this isn't actually true. We can still find in the manga fresh ideas that aren't in any movie, video game or one shot: the R.J.7, teams like Mexico or Sweden and their stories. The same can be said for the characters, Hino and Levin are extremely charismatic characters not present in any video game or movie. As for already existing characters, they are still much more charismatic and fleshed out in the end, in the manga, than they were in movies or games. There is no doubt that playing with them a bit in original stories actually helped Takahashi to refine them for his canon story in the manga. As for the similar story elements, it'd have been bad not to have the Tsubasa-Roberto confrontation, just because it was already used in an original story. Movies or Video games at the time were extremely short medias to depict the situation, and again I think that the manga, as rushed as it was, still did a better job. Finally, Takahashi just isn't recycling "everything". Let's take China, while the video games have the rather funny Li brothers, the manga gave us a totally original character, Sho Shunko, and is in my opinion a much greater character than them. But this is also giving us another element for our predictions: nothing is actually definite. As for spoiling, it is indeed a crazy thing to do for an author, but it's also proving that Takahashi isn't just making up his story as he goes. He has a general idea of where he's going and what happens along the way. And since he isn't recycling everything, there is nothing to prove that he is actually spoiling everything as well. After all, in the Captain Tsubasa 2000 Millennium Dream one-shot, Tsubasa and the others are more than 23 years old, while in the current Golden-23 arc, they're actually 21. So...

What will happen in CT
... Is still unclear, despite all of that. What we know from all of this, is that Takahashi may use more elements from the video games or already gave us some elements of what'll happen in the future in some one shots and foreshadowing dreams... Or not. But we can list some of these elements and wait to see if they happen or not...
-Japan will play against Spain in the semi finals, and Brazil in the final of the Olympics (January 2023 update: Brazil in the final and Spain for the semi-final are confirmed in Rising sun and Rising sun The Final.)
-Tsubasa will get injured and be temporarily healed by Sho (July 2016 update: Sho present at the olympics. He could use acupuncture on Tsubasa if he ever needs it.)
-Tsubasa and Sanae will have 2 kids: Hayate and Daibu (January 2023 update: Sanae is pregnant with 2 babies.)
-Wakabayashi will play for Bayern (March 2021 update: Wakabayashi officially joined Bayern in chapter 119 of Rising sun).
-Misaki will play for Paris Saint Germain (January 2023 update: It was confirmed in the chapter 4 of Next Dream.)
-Matsuyama will play in the Premier league and join Manchester (January 2023 update: Premier league, but in Arsenal in chapter 7 of Next Dream.)
-Wakashimazu will play alongside Hyuga in the Juventus (January 2023 update: Actually going to Porto with Urabe in.chapter 6 of Next Dream)
-Nitta will play for Sao Paulo, he'll also betray Japan (January 2023 update: Actually playing for Dortmund with no intention to betray Japan)
-Santana will be traumatized by an injury he caused: (January 2023 update: Kind of recycled in Michael's story in Rising sun.)
-Misaki and Matsuyama will play against each other: (January 2023 update: The CL arc is pretty much confirmed in Next Dream, Misaki and Matsuyama are in different clubs.)
-Hyuga will lose the "eye of the tiger" because of a player: (Maybe already used, kind-of, with him being loaned in the Serie C?)
-Roberto's coach will eventually become an antagonist to Japan (July 2016 update: He's actually Brazil's head coach in the olympics, so yeah, that happened sooner.)
-Roberto will coach Japan (January 2023 update: He's Japan's coach in chapter 21 of Next Dream.)
-There will be a Champions league (January 2023 update: The CL arc is pretty much confirmed in Next Dream)
-The champions league finals will be Tsubasa's Barcelona as the n°10 and captain against Wakabayashi's Bayern (March 2021 update: Wakabayashi officially joined Bayern in chapter 119 of Rising sun. January 2023 update: Tsubasa is Barcelona's captain in chapter 22 of Next Dream.)