Frankly Football's World Cup Prediction: Groups A-D

Okay, I have been wavering and going back and forth on this for far too long. Every day I seem to come up with a reason why a team I think will win today is better than who I thought would win yesterday. So it's time for me to buckle down and just pick how I think this thing will play out. Of course, one wrong placement can blow this whole thing up.



GROUP A
Prediction for Order of Finish:

1. Mexico


2. Uruguay


3. France


4. South Africa

Rationale: This has the potential to be the most exciting group in the first round. All of these teams have decent to excellent attacking players, and they all stink on defense. In that case, I'm going with the teams that have the better goalscoring tandems. I really like what I have seen from Carlos Vela and Javier Hernandez up front, and Mexico manager Javier Aguirre seems to have it right with Giovani Dos Santos on the flank. Uruguay has a prolific combination in Diego Forlan (Atletico Madrid) and Luis Suarex (Ajax), and Nicolas Lodeiro is a youngster who could stand to make a lot of money providing the chances for the frontmen. I simply cannot trust France. They have a lame duck manager in Raymond Domenech (more lame than duck too, but I digress), and looking at their squad there is so much imbalance (3 left backs in the squad; Abidal, Clichy, and Evra). I'm determined in my prediction that this will be the first World Cup that the host doesn't progress. South Africa just doesn't have the depth to compete with the teams they have drawn.

GROUP B
Prediction for Order of Finish:

1. Argentina


2. Greece


3. South Korea


4. Nigeria

Rationale: Argentina got the benefit of a favorable draw with the teams they are grouped with, as well as getting locations that are lower in altitude (in qualifying, Maradona's men were a nightmare in places of altitude, getting embarrassed by Bolivia and Ecuador). They are head and shoulders the class of this group, provided that Diego Maradona doesn't meddle too much with the team chemistry. Their stiffest test will come from Greece, and I'll take Otto Rehhagel's organization and stinginess over anything the Koreans and Nigerians will throw at them. You'll see a trend: the European teams that pride themselves on organization and discipline tend to do well in the group stage, as they will have had an abundance of time to prepare for their opponents.

GROUP C
Prediction for Order of Finish

1. England


2. United States


3. Algeria


4. Slovenia

Rationale: I really, really, really hope the US can pull off the upset in Rustenburg on Saturday and control their own destiny for the group win, but I think England is too physically imposing. While the Australia win was impressive, there are still issues with the back four, particularly if Oguchi Onyewu can regain his form from the Confederations Cup a year ago. Fabio Capello's England team has plenty of alternatives to replace Rio Ferdinand in defense, but the question mark will be the goalkeeping. They are star-studded and have plenty of experience when you speak of Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Wayne Rooney, and Ashley Cole. Algeria will be a stingy proposition but will prove they are not deep enough. As will Slovenia, who are here thanks to their win over Russia in qualifying playoffs.

GROUP D
Prediction for Order of Finish:

1. Serbia


2. Germany


3. Ghana


4. Australia

Rationale: Here is where my organized European team theory kicks in. I think the Serbians are a dark horse in this competition and win what I think is the Group of Death (I'm a believer that the Group of Death has to have 4 good teams, Group G only has 3). Do I think they will win? No, but they have talent and experience in a lot of positions. In back they have players like Nemanja Vidic, Neven Subotic, and Aleksandr Kolarov. Midfield includes veteran Dejan Stankovic, and winger Milos Krasic who stands to get rich off this World Cup. In Marko Pantelic and Nikola Zigic, they have two strikers who can finish in a variety of ways. Germany has some questions to answer in defense, particularly if Hans-Jorg Butt can carry over his club form in goal to replace injured Rene Adler. They had issues with a soft center of defense at times in 2006 and I'm not convinced they have the defenders to deal with Serbia's strike force. This could be a breakout World Cup for Sami Khedira as he will be looked at to lead the midfield in place of the injured Michael Ballack. Ghana will just miss out, and will rue the injury to their midfield leader Michael Essien. The Black Stars, still have experience with John Mensah, Stephen Appiah, and Sully Muntari, and could make me look bad here. Australia had a solid World Cup qualifying campaign, but you could argue that Asian football is down this year in quality compared to previous World Cups. The nuclues of their team is aging, and they were exposed in their friendly against USA on Saturday.

Tomorrow I'll yap about E-H, and Thursday I'll run down my knockout stages.