Group B in the 2010 World Cup promises one thing: Anarchy. Argentina is the headliner in the group, but deciding a number two team between South Korea, Greece and Nigeria is not an easy task. Nor will it be easy to qualify in this group, as there is no team that is an easy target to destroy.
Argentina:
Lead once again by their country’s biggest sports hero, Diego Maradona, the Argentineans look to be primed to win this group with style and ease… but that is only on reputation and talent. Looking at Argentina's qualifying, you'll see that they needed to scrap together 2 wins to qualify for the World Cup for the 10th time in a row after dropping games late in qualifying to Paraguay and Brazil and they suffered positively crushing (and confusing) loss to Bolivia 6-1 earlier in process. Argentina, like France, is a team loaded with talent who only needs to qualify to be a potential winner, so we will leave their qualifying woes at that. We will also ignore international super duper mega star Lionel Messi’s lack of success on the international field (he is a destroyer of worlds for Barcelona). Putting it plainly, Argentina will require Messi to retain his form from league play and Maradona needs to get his players in line for the month long tournament. In a country that lives and breathes for their home team’s success, perhaps Maradona is the perfect coach for the team as no one else knows about success in the magnifying light of the world’s biggest event. They will cruise to the round of 16 in style.
Greece:
After winning the 2004 Euro Cup, Greece had high hopes for 2006’s World Cup. Those hopes were not even remotely realized thanks to a pitiful qualifying campaign. 2008’s Euro Cup was not much better. Now that Greece has qualified for the 2010 Cup (their first since ’94), they are hoping to spark whatever created their run in 2004. Greece’s qualifying wasn’t pretty, but they qualified after dispatching the Ukraine in the playoffs 1-0 (agg). Greece will certainly be looking toward erasing their first and only trip to the World Cup from the history books with a successful run. In 1994, Greece laid an egg by losing to Bulgaria, Argentina and Nigeria by an aggregate of 0-10. Yes, zero goals scored, ten goals surrendered. Greece is far better now, and they have to be inspired by the recent fracturing of their country thanks to miserable economic issues, and even more they would surely like some Cup revenge against Argentina and Nigeria. They feature the highest scoring player in Euro qualifying, Theofanis Gekas, and their coach Otto Rehhagel is most certainly not short in experience. Greece has the ingredients for success, but will they put it together like in 2004. Argentina will likely roll over them, but Nigeria and South Korea will be firefights. In the end, it’s hard to see them beating both Nigeria and South Korea, but at least this time… they’ll score a goal.
Nigeria:
In 1994, Nigeria shocked the soccer universe by beating Bulgaria 3-0 to open up the ’94 World Cup and then going on to come within 1 minute in qualifying time to make it to the Round of 8. In 1998, the Super Eagles had another successful run. Unfortunately in 2002, they got drawn into the group of death and didn’t make it out. In 2006, they didn’t qualify. They hope to see a reversal of this downward arc in 2010. Qualifying didn’t make that feeling strong in any way, shape or form. They needed a semi miraculous upset of Tunisia by Mozambique to bail them out from a slow start in the final round of qualifying and a come from behind 3-2 win in Kenya to seal the deal. Nigeria has plenty of European based talent to build upon on their squad, but youth may be an issue. The old guard who took them to 3 straight Cups are almost all gone at this point, so the Super Eagles will need to be held steady as they play superpower Argentina to open the tournament. If Argentina were to flex their muscles, it will be on their veterans to keep the wheels from falling off the bus. Success is hardly a guarantee, but a win and a draw against the smaller teams in their group could lead to a backdoor to the Round of 16. And seeing as how this is Africa’s first Cup, there is no telling if Nigeria will become a secondary favorite by the locals. That would be a huge boost to this young team.
South Korea:
If forced to guess how many times consecutively South Korea has qualified for the World Cup, how many guesses would it take for you to get to seven? It’s not that this team lacks talent, it’s that other than their homegrown super run in the 2002 World Cup (played in their backyard and they got a little help from blind refs), the Taeguk Warriors had a tendency to get steamrolled before their successful run. 2006 saw a near miss to the Round of 16, so being South Korea appears to have shaken the jitters plaguing them in previous campaigns and they will look to keep it going in 2010. They qualified with ease but they had 3 ties with their eternal enemy, North Korea, who also qualified (but they are expected to get obliterated out of the tournament to the point where one expert said the best case scenario for them “not to come in dead last place.” More on that in group G). Korea has been sending more players abroad and the quality of their play is directly correlated to that, but will they be able to secure a victory from Nigeria or Greece? I vote no. This group is not a good matchup for the Koreans, like in 2002 where they had the Americans and a weakened Portugal to get by, and their results will reflect that.
Predicted Tables
Argentina 3-0-0
Nigeria 1-1-1
Greece 0-1-2
South Korea 0-2-1
No comments:
Post a Comment