Hi Guys,
All the love has come for
Brazil (4.40) and
Argentina (6.50) .. but can we really rule out
FRANCE? @8s
I know they are missing a couple of players, but the talent pool there must be massive...
Does this guy know something we don't?
They're really good, I agree, but they've been getting their aging forwards to carry the battle for far too long, and midfield now is nowhere as good as their missing stars. Finalists maybe, but more Christmas party donations? =D
And Ghana did their job against a pretty damned good Swiss side too
Agree a brave punt should be on an African side, and I put down a bit on Senegal actually at 138/1
And Ghana is worst rated African side in this competition while Sengal is highest rated. Not that it means much when the show starts. That being said I don't feel like Senegal can recover from loosing Mane. Especially now when he is going on surgery and won't even be with the team. Sarr is good player but nowhere near good enough to step into Mane boots.
Yeah, and if you watched them (and even Egypt who's not playing) in Afcon, the quality of matches overall was so poor, you can't seem them really compete against World Cup teams. Then again, it's a entirely different style of play, different expectations and game management (the most important aspect in Qatar IMO), it's not easy to really imagine how teams will play until the first few rounds get underway.
African teams always made some big surprises in first round of previous World Cups, so it's possible this could happen again.
I don't expect Ghana to win the trophy but they could mess things up for Portugal and Uruguay, I just don't know how everyone will adjust to Qatar climate and time zone changes.
What do guys think, about one national team that will be biggest surprise in this world cup?
During AFC, I took home a lot of money on Qatar. They were an unknown team, practising behind closed doors, and with a cool Spanish coach that actually for a "young" team has won quite a lot since he took charge. I don't think they're that dangerous any more as an unknown, but they have the most stable unit - a coach that practically built this current team for 10 years, who already have a bit of experience winning in Asia and Concacaf, and could definitely pull off the first upset tomorrow against Ecuador, but they are still very poor at game management -- something the South Americans and Europeans are masters of.
After what happened with Ronaldo, which came out of the blue for me, I suspect it could also cause Portugal to stumble. Amazing talents but until they purge Ronaldo they can't play to the formation that truly takes on the strength of their team -- so yeah, they could get pipped by Ghana, sho knows.
I definitely don't think everyone adjusts to Qatar humidity. I know for a fact it's a very different environment to play in that kind of heat plus humidity, you need months to acclimatise.
So I'm not 100% sure about upset teams, but I think a couple of giants could miss out on KO and give their places to 3rd seeds like Japan, South Korea, Ghana, even 4th seed like Qatar. Germany, Portugal, Croatia are my favourites for missing out but I picked them all to progress anyway!