Portugal v Sweden is a fairly tough match-up, but the Portuguese have to be favourites. France v Ukraine is also fairly tough as Ukraine are not easy for anyone, but again the more traditional footballing power France has to be the favourite. Greece v Romania could go either way, but the Greeks will definitely feel they have the advantage. Iceland v Croatia could see an upset for Iceland, but Croatia will be pretty miffed with themselves if they don’t get through.
I don’t see any “love” for Bosnia & Herzegovina as they qualified for the 1st time to a major soccer competition 20 years after the war. They played really well, this the generation of the kids who were toddlers to pre-teens during the war and almost all of them play outside of Bosnia. They did have a relatively easy group but as always in soccer it’s anyone’s game to win/lose.
On a related note – a very sad event followed the last game against Lithuania, the game that sealed spot in Brazil. Late that night, four young men were driving back home from Lithuania and three of the guys died in a car accident. Yesterday, a dzenaza (funeral) was held attended by thousands including Bosnia team captain Emir Spahic who flew in from Germany to be there.
Not enough bread or freedom but emotions run high in that part of the world. All the time.
Yes it could be very close indeed. Portugal have misfired throughout the qualification and I’d maybe have them slight favourites but nothing worth betting on.
The interesting thing is that one of either Ronaldo or Ibrahimovic is *not *going to the World cup. Tell you what, Zlatan is going to be a heck of a player once he learns to strike a ball sweetly!
According to the World Cup Simulator, England are in the same pot as Bosnia (one European non-top seed will not be in the same pot as the rest of the European nations - at the minute, according to the Simulator, it’s Russia but I don’t understand why that is necessarily). So this is what I feel about Bosnia - thank fuck England can’t draw them.
Their attitude is one of - we can’t defend very well, so we will attack with everything we have; if you score 2, we’ll score 3, if you score 3, we’ll score 4 - they’re quite an entertaining side. They’re precisely the type of side that would scare the shit out of me if England played them, as our centre back pairing is not secure, our goalie is in a run of bad form and you never know when England are going to pull out a poor performance in front of goal. Like I said, precisely the sort of side that I could see beating England (outside the nations who are the usual suspects to win these tournaments, who we virtually never beat in tournament play).
The romantic in me hopes that they get an easy group and get in to the knock out phases or at least gives one of the big names a good chasing.
Yes, but you’ve got to look at the teams right now: Portugal have a better team and better recent results. Admittedly Ibrahamovic is on fire at the moment, the problem is he isn’t a player that can be relied upon to come up big when it really matters, especially against better opposition and with Ronaldo Portugal will not feel disadvantaged in the star player stakes.
I’m glad they qualified, but in purely footballing terms I think they are what they are: they have players like Dzeko and Pjanic who will be better than the best players on a number of teams at the World Cup, but they haven’t really done anything to mark themselves out.
It was one of those that gave you enough time to realise it was flying in and also to give a purr of delight as it did so.
As anyone who has played as a striker will tell you, when you hit them like that you barely know you’ve struck the ball at all. A lovely (and for me…all too rare) feeling.
I’m not sure I agree with that. Portugal’s qualifying record was horrendous:
Luxembourg 1-2 Portugal (they barely beat Luxembourg)
Portugal 3-0 Azerbaijan
Russia 1-0 Portugal
Portugal 1-1 Northern Ireland (cant even beat NI at home)
Israel 3-3 Portugal (I watched this game, Portugal needed a injury time goal to get the draw)
Azerbaijan 0-2 Portugal
Northern Ireland 2-4 Portugal
Portugal 1-1 Israel (still cant beat Israel, even at home)
Portugal 3-0 Luxembourg
Now check out Sweden’s record, their results have been much more consistent (except for their last game against Germany):
I dunno, I think Sweden might be able to pull of an upset and knock out Portugal. We shall see.
Just a bump to note New Zealand’s (already slim) chances against Mexico have taken a dive with their skipper and best playerout due to a training injury.
Oh and also tonight that the US have made the quarterfinals of this year’s rugby league World Cup - where they’re set to play Australia on the 12th.. Hell the Wiggles have even written a song about it.
It wasn’t an unreasonable expectation to think that Sweden had a decent chance and I won’t fault you for it. But sometimes the most dangerous striker on the planet is able to take care of business in ways that mere mortals can’t.
I will miss the Zlatan in the WC, however. He is awesome in his own unique way, too.
Very very tough WC coming up next summer, one of the toughest fields top to bottom I can remember.
Despite all the scepticism about FIFA rankings, the top 19 ranked teams made it to the finals, and the first to miss out (Ukraine at 20) only did so due to a playoff.
While the pots haven’t been announced yet I’ve been ltrying to figure out what the worst group of death might look like.
Maybe Spain, Netherlands, Ivory Coast and Australia?
That would be a tough group. It would be nice if we got an easy group after our last group of megadeath at Euro 2012.
The projected pots for 2014 World Cup:
