I watched Russia's matches because they played in the qualifying group with Croatia and they didn't impress me at all. They played a lot of games poorly and were lucky to get points.
Slovakia completely outplayed them in the match in Russia and completely undeservedly lost the key match for second place in the group and additional qualifications.
Russia quite luckily made it to the additional qualifications for the World Cup, but there they would have no chance of qualifying for the World Cup.
Macedonia's successes are no longer a surprise. Before Italy, they also beat Germany away from home. Only those who have not been following this national team lately can be surprised. This is a great team.
Historically, Russia has been a very volatile team. Sometimes they perform really well and then for sometime they perform horribly. But I thought that they did well in the UEFA qualifiers. They were placed in a tough group along with Croatia, and still managed to finish second (Croatia had 23 points, Russia ended with 22). They were supposed to play against Poland but the latter made a complaint against them and got a walkover. And POland managed to qualify for the world cup, by defeating Sweden in the playoff.
Well, Poland is a terrifying team, but I think that if Sweden did qualify, it was Ibrahimovic's last World Cup, first of all there is one thing that at least leaves a bad taste in my mouth, thanks to a problem that has to be seen completely outside of sport has affected the Russian team, this is something that should not enter, much less mix, because sport is apart from political problems, however this is a geo-political problem where little soccer players were affected who did not even want to war, it's hard when you want to emerge and because of a nationality they don't give value to your effort just for being of a nationality, you see these things emotionally affect many.
~snip~
Just no only Brazil most of the top rank teams are coming here with great chance of winning this event because these are feeling they are done enough work for this and have 100% chance and as you are saying from your top of the head these teams having better chance then we are also have heads, and they are also feeling on this way but with different teams like right now many are feeling England is also going to be in last four and few are insisting about Croatia and Netherlands as these are also having quality and skill players.
But the main thing is going to be happened in ground and for this we have to wait for nearly two months as preparations are in last stage and hopefully soon we will have squads announcements as well which will give better shape for this event and its outcome.
Yeah, The Netherlands is an incredibly strong team, another candidate for winning the trophy. England might do it, but I'm personally not too sure about it, I think they will end up in the semis, or maybe runner up at most. And Croatia, well, they're good, but it would be a surprise if they end up winning the world cup.
But you never know in football, that's part of the charm.
For me, these things with the Netherlands are because they clearly haven't had any kind of luck, for me it's already a matter of luck, the Netherlands has always had a great team and I hope that in this World Cup they can go very far and why not? win the World Cup, there are some players who have been very good and iconic, for me one of the greatest was Roben, who was about to win the World Cup, but not by fate, I think that the Netherlands should change their way of playing play at least when they are going to be in a final match, because they usually lose it, so the Dutch have long deserved this cup, but since things are not given away they have to show better football than France, England, Brazil, Argentina , Germany which are the teams that are favorites to win.