will argentina finally man up?
With the O's off to their worst start since 88, and the arsenal season coming to a proverbial close wednesday night, i figured i might as well start to look ahead to the marquee event of every four years, (no not the lost finale) THE WORLD CUP.
One thing that a lot of casual people somehow dont realize is that the bracket is already set, to an extent. You can already see which groups are matched up with each other, A&B, C&D, E&F, and G&H for their first knockout round game. What cannot be determined is anything after that, because everything hinges on whether a team either wins or comes in second in their group because that places them on opposite sides of the bracket since the winners and runners up of the same group couldn't meet again until the final. got it?
Ok, so with that being said, I thought I'd take a look at who has the nastiest and softest potential roads to jo'burg (keep in mind that there sure to be a few surprises that will probably render this whole post worthless)
Right, so if someone asked me who the 5 teams I thought would be the most likely to lift the trophy I'd say England, Argentina, Spain, Holland, and Brazil. Then there's a small drop off for me on to the next tier of Italy, Portugal, Germany, and France. Suffice it to say that it would be a shock if the winner did not come from any one of these 9 teams.
Of the 9, you'd have to say Spain have the most undesirable path. They're sure to get a difficult first game whether they win their group or not facing either Brazil, Portugal or the Ivory Coast, (who i feel will stink it up at this world cup), and then likely play the holders, Italy in the quarters, and the Argentines in the semis, (assuming they both win their groups and progress). Thats a hell of a road to get to the finals.
On the other side of the coin, you really have to like the way this is shaping up for our beloved three lions. All internal demons aside, I think they have the easiest path on paper by far, long as they TCB in their first match, (which could be tricky mind you) against whoever comes out along with germany in what I think is the real group of death of this tournament. So assuming that the Germans win their group, England wont have to play any of the aforementioned frontrunners until the semis. Their first game is likely to be tricker than their quarterfinal date where they might face the experienced but ailing french (still dangerous, especially with low expectations as we saw in 2006), jayjay okocha's nigeria perhaps (yeah, they're not scaring anybody), or maybe the dreaded mexicans, (i know just hearing the killer B's of blanco and borgetti sends chills down my spine, and i'll never write a good thing about a mexican footballer, ever).
That's why Im thinking this might be the indian summer that the brits get it done. England over Argentina in the final. Rooney wins the golden boot, and as long as we take revenge on the Germans I'll be a happy man.
No comments:
Post a Comment