Fernando Gros

Mundial 2010

In case you hadn’t heard, the FIFA World Cup begins tonight. Eight years ago I ran a small world cup blog, which look­ing back on it now, was not too shabby. I’m not doing that this time around, rely­ing instead on others (like the excel­lent tac­tical blog, Zonal Mark­ing) to wrap some detail, humour and ana­lysis around the tour­na­ment. How­ever, since I’ve been asked to do so by a few people, here’s my quick and dirty pre­dic­tions for the tournament.

Group A
France played one of the most mem­or­able World Cup matches I’ve ever seen, a torrid Semi-Final against West Ger­many in ’82. And, of course, they won in a mem­or­able final in ’98. How­ever, this side will prob­ably resemble, more closely, the dis­ap­point­ing team of ’02, who failed to get out of the group stage.
Mexico are a tal­en­ted and tac­tic­ally adven­tur­ous side who often dom­in­ate their region but can’t always trans­fer that form to the World Cup stage. How­ever, I expect them to make it through to the round of six­teen.
South Africa as the hosts will have tre­mend­ous sup­port. But, their form going into the tour­na­ment sug­gests they will struggle to give their fans much to cheer about, once the open­ing rounds are com­plete.
Uruguay struggled early on in qual­i­fy­ing but came into their own over time. My feel­ing is this tour­na­ment will be one for play­makers and pure strikers of the ball and Uruguay have both. The draw, in the knock­out stages could favour them as poten­tial quarter finalists.

Group B
Argen­tina are the enigma of the tour­na­ment. A stun­ningly power­ful and cre­at­ive side. But, with Maradona as coach any­thing — and, I mean any­thing — could happen. Still, I’m going to pick them to make it at least as far as the semi-finals and maybe, just maybe, go all the way.
Greece will be a tough side to beat, but I’m not sure they have a win­ning for­mula. Still, in some­thing of a weak group, they will prob­ably make it through to the knock­out stages.
Nigeria have his­tor­ic­ally been one of the strongest and most attract­ive African sides. But, they are a weaker and less soph­ist­ic­ated pro­pos­i­tion this time. If they manage to beat Greece to second place in the group, that will be as far as they go.
South Korea are the strongest of what is a weak batch of Asian nations. An ener­getic side who will run and run and run, then leave after their three group games.

Group C
Algeria are a side that are being over­looked by a lot of com­ment­at­ors. But, I expect may cause some head­aches for the other teams in this group. They won’t make it to the next stage, but they could well pull off an upset.
Eng­land are a team I’d like to see do well. But, I’m not sure how far they will go once they make it to the knock­out stages. Injur­ies and an unbal­anced squad will be their undo­ing.
Slov­e­nia are a side that I expect to play very defens­ive and tight foot­ball. They may just make it through to the knock­out stages, which for them would be quite an achieve­ment.
USA only really play well when they attack, which could be their undo­ing given that the smal­ler teams in this group can play patient foot­ball. But, if they take their chances, the US will, as I expect, make it through to the next round.

Group D
Aus­tralia did well in the last world cup to make it to the knock­out stage and push the Itali­ans in a tough match. Sadly, this side is slower, less cre­at­ive and less attack-minded than the team from four years ago. A hard fought but early exit awaits the “Soc­ceroos.“
Ger­many will miss Bal­lack in the centre of the park but will still have enough fire­power to make it through to the quarter finals.
Ghana will also miss a key (Chelsea-based) player-maker in Michael Essien. Still, they are an excit­ing team who will push their oppos­i­tion hard, though maybe not hard enough to win through to the next round.
Serbia strike me as one of the most defens­ively solid teams in the tour­na­ment. They should make the knock­out stages, but I doubt they have the goalscor­ing prowess to go far.

Group E
Cameroon are a side that can play elec­tric foot­ball on a good day, but may well lack the dis­cip­line to get the res­ults needed to make it through to the knock­out stage.
Den­mark are my pick to take the second qual­i­fy­ing spot in what could be the most lop­sided group. They have a good squad, can con­trol the game and win while play­ing at a slow tempo — some­thing that might be handy at alti­tude. Don’t be sur­prised if they make the quarter finals.
Japan are a team that will prove that good play­ers can’t over­come bad tac­tics. Poor qual­i­fy­ing form will trans­late to a bottom of the group finish.
Neth­er­lands are a sharp side that some smart pun­dits have picked as a poten­tial dark-horse. My feel­ing is this side will be every-bit as excit­ing as the great squads of ’74, ’78 and ’94 and should make it to at least the semi-finals.

Group F
Italy will start slow, score a lot of goals, knock Brasil out, reach the semi finals, send their fans crazy and be hated by every­one else. Busi­ness as usual really.
New Zea­l­and have done well to make it this far. How­ever, that will be cold com­fort every time they pick the ball out of the own net — some­thing they will be doing a lot.
Paraguay are one of my favour­ite South Amer­ican sides, largely down to their “Christ­mas Tree” form­a­tion. Deadly on the counter attack and agon­isingly hard to break down in defence, they will make to the next round at least.
Slov­akia are able to play styl­ish foot­ball and with a youth­ful squad they may sur­prise some. Then again, they may not. The order of matches favours them, but I doubt they have what it takes to score against two of the best defens­ive teams in the tournament.

Group G
Brasil will, thanks to coach Dunga, be play­ing an unchar­ac­ter­ist­ic­ally prag­matic brand of foot­ball at the tour­na­ment. Still, they have enorm­ous goalscor­ing poten­tial across the park and plenty of poten­tial stars. It will take a big team to undo them.
Cote d’Ivoire were my pick of the African sides till the freak injury to Didier Drogba. They should still pro­gress, but might struggle to get beyond the first knock­out stage.
North Korea play a brand of foot­ball that is hard to love, unless you like robotic pre­dict­ab­il­ity. They will scramble and fight and worry about what awaits them when they return home after the group stage.
Por­tugal have great play­ers but will not match the res­ults of recent tour­na­ments. Chris­ti­ano Ron­aldo will have to do a lot to help lift his side to the next phase.

Group H
Chile have their best squad since ’98 and, thanks to Bielsa, their best tac­tics since they hosted the finals in ’62. Styl­ish and deadly on the counter-attack they are the pick of a lot of ana­lysts to stage an upset or two.
Hon­duras have suffered some brutal defeats on the world cup stage. They are now a stronger and more well dis­cip­lined side that can play attract­ive foot­ball. How­ever, they will still struggle to win a game.
Spain are many people’s favour­ites to win the tour­na­ment. They have a stag­ger­ingly strong squad and in Del Bosque, a coach who knows how to win. They will impress early, but injur­ies and fatigue will mean they might struggle in the knock­out stages.
Switzer­land don’t always have the goalscor­ing flair to match their oth­er­wise solid form. An unfash­ion­able side that will play well, but leave early.

Tac­tic­ally, I think it will be a fas­cin­at­ing world cup. Whereas recent tour­na­ments have favoured 4–4-2 and 4–5-1 form­a­tions, this year we will see more sides play­ing vari­ations of 3 at the back and also the now pop­u­lar again (at European club level) 4–3-3. Then, of course, Brasil will be play­ing their crazy 2–2-2–2-2 system with dif­fer­ent emphasis down each flank (because they can).

So, who will make the Quarter Finals? Well, my pick is that Argen­tina, Brasil, Chile, Ger­many, Italy, the Neth­er­lands, Serbia and Uruguay will make up the final eight. Going beyond that, I’m going to stick my neck out and pre­dict an Argen­tina versus Neth­er­lands final.

Of course, the like­li­hood is that, in a few weeks, I’ll look back on these pre­dic­tions and wonder what kind of lunacy had over­come me. That’s what I love about foot­ball. After all the pre­dic­tions, ana­lysis and think­ing the game still takes us by sur­prise again and again.

In that spirit I’ve been work­ing on this kind of crazy tune, Golaso. Hope you enjoy the World Cup!

Golaso (version2) by fernan­dogros

This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 7:48 pm. It is filed under Football and tagged with FIFA, Mundial, World Cup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.