I hinted at this before, but now I can confirm that I will be traveling to South Africa for the World Cup. Will be watching both semi finals in Durban and Cape town, along with the final in Jo’berg. Really psyched. Should be epic. Will post some pics and stuff when am back. Cheers.
This was posted on Goal.com (Engineered by Castrol Football), pretty much the script of World Cup 2010. Obviously its a World Cup so there will be one or two surprises. Also if you notice they have predicted Germany and Italy to be knocked out in the Quarter finals. Well all I will say is that is unlikely, Italy and Germany are the two most experienced teams when it comes to progressing to the final stages of a big tournament along with Brazil. So one of them should make it further, I am thinking Germany to beat Argentina but its too unpredictable after the Round of 16.
World Cup in 5 days!! Couldn’t be more excited about it! If you aren’t on the same page as I am, then get the fuck out! Anyways if you want get in to the World Cup groove and want all the basic info, team news, schedules, etc. I will put everything relevant in this post. The opening match is on 11th June with hosts South Africa facing Mexico.
Firstly, the schedule: For the match schedule, I didn’t just get you any schedule but it is the best I could find anywhere. Here is the link and if you want to download one for your desktop wallpaper click here.
Here the basic groups:
Players to watch in every group are:
Group A: Ribery (France), Group B: Messi (Argentina), Group C: Rooney (England), Group D: Krasic (Serbia), Group E: Sneijder & Robben (who is an injury doubt) (Both from Netherlands), Group F: De Rossi (Italy), Group G: Ronaldo (Portugal) & Drogba (who is also an injury doubt) (Ivory Coast), Group H: Xavi (Spain)
For me the favorites on paper are Spain with an astounding 96% win rate under Vincent Del Bosque. But its a World Cup and on paper means nothing, and the best example of that is Italy winning it in 2006. How you managed to qualify for the World Cup is irrelevant, you could win all your matches and qualify for the World Cup like Spain and still go on to win it or barely manage to qualify like Argentina and still go on to win it. Argentina has a lot of players who have had a brilliant season for their respective clubs like Tevez, Higuain, Milito, Di Maria, Pastore and obviously Messi. Their Achilles heal will be their manager Maradona or he will be their genius, there is a thin line between madness and genius. So far he has been a mad man but can he be the genius is yet to be seen. I flinched twice when I saw he left out Zanetti and Cambiasso out of his squad but lets not judge him just yet. I am not even going to talk about England, all I will say is, “GO ROONEY!!!” For me the dark horses are the Dutch, with Van Persie, Sniejder, Van Bommel, Van Der Vaart and obviously they need a fit Robben. But they can really go far in this tournament. I would love it if Van Der Saar can return from retirement in goal, that would strengthen them a lot, but its obviously too late for wishful thinking now. How did I write a paragraph on the World Cup and not yet mention Brazil, you cannot rule out Brazil out of any World Cup. But this is a very different Brazil, under Dunga they are more a workman-like and effective team, reminiscent to the team Dunga captained to glory in 1994.
And finally if you in to fantasy FIFA have an official one going on looks interesting and a bit different from the usual ones so read the rules. CLICK.
Also I have a huge personal news regarding the World Cup, but that’s not till the later stages so see you then. Leaving you with a great World Cup advert by Nike. Watch it in HD.
