World Cup Predictions: Part I of V

This is a new blog as you can obviously see. In the past, I’ve posted things unrelated to screen media on my movie review blog, but now is just as good a time as any, I think, to create a place where I can talk about anything I want. It could be politics, sports, art, travel, or anything else that strikes my fancy enough to write about it.

For this first post, I will be talking about the upcoming World Cup. I have only recently become a follower of “the beautiful game.” But my interest and love of the game has grown rapidly. As an American, basketball has made me “scoring-crazed,” as a recent article in WSJ put it. Sure, baseball is an often low-scoring sport, but they do score. Rarely does a game go a full 9 innings without a run crossing the plate; when that does happen, though, they don’t just give up. But this alone does not fully explain why Americans find football, or soccer, to be boring, a camp I was a part of until very recently. We fail to appreciate the physicality of the game as well as the skill involved in it. I have recently stopped finding the lack of scoring completely boring and have discovered how interesting these aspects make the game at the very least watchable and sometimes awesome.

All that has led me to my World Cup predictions. I will predict everything, from the group stage through the finals. I will go into a lot of detail and will talk about the teams as a whole in the group stage. I wrote everything above before I ever got started doing the rest, and it ended up being super-long, so I’m going to finish all of my predictions from groups through the final before Brazil and Croatia kick off on Thursday, but all of the knockout round write-ups will be posted after some of the group stage has already been played.

Group A:

1. Brazil—Group A is arguably the weakest group (I’d probably say second-weakest), and Brazil is certainly one of this tournament’s best teams, so I think the hosts will either go 3-0-0 or 2-1-0 This is the first time Brazil has hosted since Uruguay upset them in the 1950 final. They’ve won 5 times, most recently in 2002 and before that in 1958, 1962, 1970, and 1994, and have finished in the top 4 an additional 5 times. The country itself may be better known for its football prowess than for anything else, even the Amazon rainforest. They’ve churned out almost certainly the best and most well-known player in history, Pelé, as well as the best player in the last two decades, Ronaldo. The country’s history is littered with otherwise lesser known stars like Jairzinho, Rivaldo, Cafu, Carlos Alberto, Roberto Carlos, and Garrincha. But enough about their past. What about their current team? Brazil has never been particularly stellar in goal, and neither Jefferson nor Júlio César is going to buck that trend, but with Dani Alves, Thiago Silva, David Luiz, and Marcelo are your defenders, with Dante and Maxwell in reserve, you don’t really need a stellar goalkeeper. Its midfield, led by Oscar, arguably the best young CAM in the world (other contenders to follow), will be an excellent creative force to supply the teams strikers, namely Neymar and Hulk (Fred and Jô aren’t too shabby either). I do think head coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, or Big Phil, missed out by not including either Lucas Moura or Lucas Leiva in the midfield and either Alexandre Pato or Robinho in attack. They are an interesting case: young and streaky in the front and old and reliable in the back. Whether this mix will spell ultimate success remains to be seen.

• Players to Watch: Neymar and Oscar
2. Cameroon—Long gone are the days of 1990 when Cameroon experienced World Cup success. That competition it had Africa’s greatest ever goalkeeper, Thomas N’Kono, and one of the most effective 38-year-olds in history, Roger Milla. Even then, the quarterfinals were as far as the team got. Since then, it’s had a combined WC record of  1-4-9 and that’s unlikely to improve much this time around. Samuel Eto’o is one of history’s great players, but at 33, he’s not nearly the force he once was. Barca’s Alex Song has also arrived as one of the sport’s top back-half midfielders, but a defensive midfielder, while important to any successful team, is hardly the most important thing for achieving the smallest of successes.

• Player to Watch: Alex Song (I guess?)
3. Croatia—Croatia has participated in 4 of the 5 World Cups for which it has been eligible, Brazil being the 5^th. It’s a surprisingly strong team led largely either by players who are either firmly established at teams in less well-known leagues or who play second fiddle to a more notable counterpart at a larger, more famous club. The strength of Darijo Srna (Ukraine), Vedran Ćorluka (Russia), and Danijel Pranjić (Greece) will go a long way toward establishing the creation of scoring opportunities by the country’s talented, more famous midfielders, such as Luka Modrić and Ivans Rakitić and Perišić. While the first two are capable scorers, their creative abilities will be far more important if Ivica Olić, Eduardo da Silva, and criminally underrated Mario Mandžukić are to lead successful attacks.


• Player to Watch: Ivan Rakitić (His strong showing with Sevilla in La Liga this season, both in terms of goals and assists, makes me thing he could have a few big games)
4. Mexico—Having played incredibly poorly for several months stretching from qualifying when a US equalizer against Panama helped them qualify, to a series of poor friendly performances over the last few weeks, Mexico looks to be on the outs. They have no top-notch goalkeeper, and Andrés Guardado will be hard-pressed to make up for the old age and/or inexperience of his counterparts. While “Chicharito” (Javier Hernández) and Giovani dos Santos are both capable goal scorers (Hernández’s work this season at ManU paralleled the team’s quite a bit though), the lack of playmaking midfielders will ultimately sink them.
• Player to Watch: Chicharito

Group A Overall Thoughts:

So Brazil will win the group rather easily. That much is certain. The rest of the group is rather interesting. I initially picked Croatia with some trepidation, but the more I think about it, the more I like their chances. I think the records will be:

1. Brazil: 3-0-0
2. Croatia: 1-1-1 (ahead on goal difference)
3. Mexico: 1-1-1
4. Cameroon: 0-0-3

Group B:

1. Australia—I literally know nothing about Australian soccer. They were blessed into one of the tournament’s three groups of death, and they will come out slaughtered.


• Player to Watch—Tim Cahill and Mile Jedinak (because they’re the only ones I’ve ever heard of)
2. Chile—Chile is a rising star and a force to be reckoned with…in the future. There, I said it. Everybody keeps talking about how Chile is going to take the world by storm this summer, and I just don’t see it. Sure, Claudio Bravo is an above-average goalkeeper and Mauricio Isla is a decent defender. But they will prove no match for van Persie, Robben, and Co. and, like most of the world, tiki-taka will be their undoing. Beyond that Arturo Vidal (arguably the best CM in the world) and Alexis Sánchez will not provide enough firepower to overcome their opponents. Maybe in 4 years’ time, but not this time. 

• Player to Watch: Arturo Vidal
3. Netherlands—They’re old. That alone lessens their chances. They have less than no chance of equaling their 2^nd place finish 4 years ago, but that doesn’t mean they’re not a good, even a great, team. Unfortunately it’s probably not the best team helmsman Louis van Gaal could have fielded, perhaps a sign he has already moved onto thoughts of an impending necessarily busy transfer window in his newly benighted position as ManU head coach. His goalkeeping choices are all understandable. Tim Krul is an underrated keeper, and Michel Vorm and Jasper Cillessen are both competent enough, but some experience, namely Maarten Stekelenburg, would have been game-changing, even if he stayed on the bench the entire tournament. Ron Vlaar is just not enough to hold down the defense, and leaving out Gregory van der Wiel just seems counterproductive. Van Gaal did a much better job with his forward-thinking players, though the choices available to him made choosing a poor team rather a challenge. Arjen Robben, even at 30, is a terrific player, and while injured Kevin Strootman would have been a great addition, Nigel de Jong and Wesley Sneijder should prove more than capable. With Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Robin van Persie, the country’s top international scorer of all time, the team should have enough goals (unless injury-prone van Persie gets, well, injured).



• Players to Watch: Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben
4. Spain—The reigning champions have been #1 for about 2 and a half years now, and while their core is aging, the constant influx of new talent means the team is never old. Their roster is almost a who’s who of major world football. In my opinion, probably Carlo Ancelotti’s biggest mistake at Real Madrid this season was relegating Iker Casillas to cup keeper and replacing him with Diego López in league play. Head coach Vicente del Bosque has not made the same mistake. It’s also nice to see David de Gea finally getting on the team sheet, even if he’s unlikely to feature in any matches. The starting back 4 of Gerard Piqué (arguably the world’s best centre back), Sergio Ramos, Jordi Alba, and probably Raúl Albiol is incredibly strong, and César Azpilicueta could finally make a name for himself. Andrés Iniesta is one of his generations best players and Xavi Hernández is considered one of history’s greatest creative midfielders for a reason. That Sergio Busquets, Xabi Alonso, Cesc Fàbregas, Javi Martínez, Juan Mata, David Silva, and Santi Cazorla are not the undoubted stars of their country’s midfield shows how incredible Iniesta and Xavi are. Pedro, Fernando Torres, and David Villa will all be integral in the front if the squad is to get the single goal per game they will need to win most matches. Their pinball passing, keep-away style is known as “tiki-taka” and won them the Cup 4 years ago despite scoring just 8 goals in 9 games, getting them a final record of 6-0-1 with just 2 goals against. They beat some of the best sides in the world 1-0 in every playoff game. I also hope Diego Costa, arguably the most important catalyst in Atlético Madrid’s rise to La Liga preeminence this season, gets an opportunity to show why he is so good. As good as the team is, I don’t think del Bosque picked the absolute best team possible, however. A better defense is virtually impossible, and his two best alternatives in the midfield, Isco and Javi García, are defensive and attacking, respectively, and pale in comparison to their selected counterparts (Sergio Busquets and Xabi Alonso; Juan Mata and David Silva). But excluding Álvaro Negredo is, I think, a poor choice. Negredo plays second/third fiddle to Sergio Agüero and Stevan Jovetić at Man City, but he is a capable striker and del Bosque should have found room for him. Arguments could be made for others like Roberto Soldado, but Soldado had a terrible season at Spurs, so including him would be folly. Once again, though, the tiki-taka style means they don’t need many goals to win, so Negredo that extra attacker really isn’t necessary at all.
• Player to Watch: Andrés Iniesta, Xavi, and Gerard Piqué (and maybe Diego Costa if he gets the playtime)

Group B Overall Thoughts:

This group has two certainties: Spain gets through, Australia doesn’t. The second spot is up for grabs. My descriptions of Netherlands and Chile probably were too generous and vindictive, respectively. That being said, I do think Netherlands have a better chance of moving on, but their age is definitely a problem, and they’ll only be successful if they can maintain their fitness and score early.

1. Spain: 2-1-0
2. Netherlands: 1-2-0
3. Chile: 1-1-1
4. Australia: 0-0-3