Saturday 16 June 2018

Wide open?

We have lift off in the 2018 World Cup and already a classic match, Spain v Portugal. I've not watched much of the last few World Cups - it all seemed to have got a bit stale - but I've been looking forward to this one. Although the 1966 tournament is a vivid memory, it's classic games involving Brazil, Italy, Argentina and Holland from the 70s and 80s that I remember most fondly. So I'm hoping for some more memorable matches.

As for who will win, it's hard to see past the favourites, as the winner nearly always comes from the top four favourites. And yet. Brazil will have to overcome a fair weight of history to win so far from home. Generally South American teams win in the Americas and European teams win elsewhere. Sure, Brazil won in Sweden in 1958 and Germany won in Brazil last time round, the only major exceptions to the trend. I'm counting South Africa as Europe (same time zone after all, as USA is for Brazil). Brazil won in Japan in 2002 but all the favourites were playing "away" then. Maybe the fact that so many Brazilians play in Europe now means they aren't playing "away" this time. And counting Russia as Europe is debatable. I just don't know if Brazil have improved that much since they got smashed by Germany in their own back yard last time round.

But the other favourites don't go into the tournament in great shape. Holders Germany have been on a poor run going into the tournament, but they always turn up and have Timo Werner, an exciting 22 year old striker who doesn't play for Bayern, yet anyway (he's at Liepzig). However, Germany feel beatable.

Spain replaced their manager on the eve of the tournament, which one feels could be very good or very bad for morale. They've got the first match under their belt so could be ok.

France have a lot of "name" players. We'll see if 19 year old Mbappe is worth the fuss. I've never been particularly impressed with Griezmann, though he is attempting to be the first since Gerd Muller to win the golden boot at the World cup and Euros having got a decent tally of 6 in 2016, despite not fully convincing me. Just as with Man United, we wonder if Paul Pogba will turn up as a player or strut around looking like a spolit rich kid but not actually doing anything. Of course, I don't count Griezman's penalty and Pogba's streaky winner against the plucky Aussies as 'performing'. As you can tell, I have my doubts about France.

Fourth favourites are the perennial underperformers Argentina, at least since the days of the Hand of God (1986). They have Lionel Messi, who many respected  commentators rank the best player in the world ever, not just now. And Messi won the Golden Ball for the best player in the last World Cup. He had the good grace to look embarrased when presented it since, like most of us, he must have wondered how come Neymar or one of several Germans hadn't won it. Even crooked FIFA chief Sepp Blatter thought it was bent. For Messi to be ranked the best ever he needs to turn in a really good performance in what might be his last world cup, rather than looking like an imposter most of the time. As he did against Australia today. So I'm not convinced by Argentina either. After all, can you win the world cup with Willy Caballero in goal? We'll see.

So could it be an outsider? Belgium are ranked fifth (fourth by some bookies) and have Hazard and de Bruyne. They could go well. Oh, and they are in England's group of course.  And after that lot, the next ranked team are England, who have only won 6 knock out rounds at a World Cup finals since 1966. Germany have won that many since 2010.

So I feel that, unless Brazil live up to their ranking as fairly hot favourites, it could be a wide open tournament. Maybe like when Greece won the Euros in 2004. Though probably not wide open enough for England! But who knows, maybe we could get the best performance from England at a tournament since Euro 1996. I'm not holding my breath.

And I'm not actually watching the football at all in the evenings at the moment: I can't take my eyes off Ian Poulter and Justin Rose who have been going well in the U. S. Open golf with decent showings by Tommy Fleetwood and Matt Fitzpatrick. A game the English are quite good at!

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