World Cup Draw
Real quickly, while it's fresh in my mind, here's my ranking of the 2006 World Cup groups, from toughest to easiest, with the major teams in them noted and ranked as well:
E- Italy, Czech, and US: Thank goodness I got that nikesoccer.com e-mail encouraging me to cheer for a Group of Death for the US just so we could prove ourselves. Otherwise I'd be really depressed right now. Basically, three quarterfinal-worthy teams and one darkhorse. Del Piero, Nedved, Essien...bring em on!
F- Brazil, Austrailia, Japan: The OTHER group of death. If we had fallen here, it probably would be worse, because I don't think we can beat Brazil, while I do think we can beat Czech and maybe Italy.
C-Argentina, Netherlands, Ivory coast
Those are the toughest 3. Drops off from there...
B- England, Sweden
G- France, South Korea
D- Mexico, Portugal
A- Germany
H- Spain
Fishy that Germany gets that easy road, no? They won't win it, though. They're a mess. Brazil and Argentina are your favorites, followed by Italy and England maybe.
That's how I feel right now, anyway. Give it a few months to stew. I'm excited for US to prove itself and England to challenge for the title.
E- Italy, Czech, and US: Thank goodness I got that nikesoccer.com e-mail encouraging me to cheer for a Group of Death for the US just so we could prove ourselves. Otherwise I'd be really depressed right now. Basically, three quarterfinal-worthy teams and one darkhorse. Del Piero, Nedved, Essien...bring em on!
F- Brazil, Austrailia, Japan: The OTHER group of death. If we had fallen here, it probably would be worse, because I don't think we can beat Brazil, while I do think we can beat Czech and maybe Italy.
C-Argentina, Netherlands, Ivory coast
Those are the toughest 3. Drops off from there...
B- England, Sweden
G- France, South Korea
D- Mexico, Portugal
A- Germany
H- Spain
Fishy that Germany gets that easy road, no? They won't win it, though. They're a mess. Brazil and Argentina are your favorites, followed by Italy and England maybe.
That's how I feel right now, anyway. Give it a few months to stew. I'm excited for US to prove itself and England to challenge for the title.
posted by Prof. A at 4:25 p.m.
1 Comments:
I think there are three groups that the USA, were we in them, would advance from easily. It would be four groups, if you include Mexico's, which we were barred from.
Group A: Beating out (Costa Rica), Poland, and Ecuador;
Group G: (S.Korea), Switzerland, Togo;
Group H: (Saudi Arabia), Ukraine, Tunisa.
Of the remaining non-E groups, I'd prefer Group F (Croatia, Australia, (Japan)) to our current situation. For one thing, Brazil awaits the second place finisher in Group E, a situation I find less desirable than facing them in group play.
So, I guess I'm reasonably happy with the draw. It's tough, no doubt, but it could have been worse. I prefer Italy/Czech Republic to either England/Sweden or Argentina/Netherlands, and while I'm wary of Ghana, if we lose to a Pool Three team, then we don't deserve to advance.
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