This is how I would classify the different teams
Candidates to win the WC: Brazil, Spain, Czech Republic and Germany.
Brazil obviously is everyone’s favorite, although they didn’t have a great game against Croatia. Spain smashed Ukraine and has a very strong team, with very young players on the attack. The Czechs are not a surprise: they’ve been playing really well in the past few years and they are ranked #2 by the FIFA. Germany is a candidate because they are playing home. I think that under different conditions, Germany wouldn’t be a favorite.
Teams that will make it to quarter finals: England, Argentina, Netherlands and Italy.
Everyone knows these are four very strong teams but none had a spectacular first game. But if they improve for the next matches, they are definitely candidates to win the WC.
Teams that will have a very good WC: Ecuador, México, Cote d’Ivoire and Australia
If there is going to be a surprising team this year, it has to come out of this list. These are four very solid and great teams, but not as good as to win the WC.
Big disappointments: Ukraine, Paraguay, USA, France, Sweden
I had a lot of expectations about Ukraine. They were the first European team to qualify to the WC and they didn’t lose a single match during qualifying. And they have Shevchenko one of the best soccer players in the world. However they looked terrible against Spain. They have an easy group with Saudi Arabia and Tunes, so they might recover and make it to the next round.
With Sweden I also had high expectations, especially because of their strong attack with Larson and Ibrahimovic, but they couldn’t win the game against Trinidad & Tobago. I do recognize that T&T played an amazing game but I though that Sweden will be beating them easily.
Finally USA, Paraguay and France played a terrible first game. I don’t think USA has a chance to advance to the next round since they are in one of the toughest groups. Paraguay doesn’t seem to have strong team. They played horrible against England. I think France on the other hand can put it together and make it to the next round, since their group is not too difficult.
3 responses to “World Cup 2006 – Now that we’ve seen all the teams…”
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