Champion: England
In the past two world cups, the eventual winner has not been performing particularly well in Qualifying or before the World Cup, Brazil has a poor run before sneak into the Finals, Italy has suffered from the well known scandal ‘Calciopoli scam’ right before world cup. But I don’t think this would repeat this time. Only Argentina and Portugal are the teams that scrap through during Qualifying. And these teams are not suffieciently organized to challenge for the title. Most of pundits favoured Spain, Brazil or England. Spain is great, but the team which is made out of lots of Barcelona tends to attack too much. I can foresee their fate in the Confederations Cup last year to repeat in South Africa. Brazil has a great defence and goalkeeper, but sadly, they are rely too heavily on Kaka for creativity in the midfield and he has not enjoy his first season at Madrid due to injury. England of course has their own problem, Glen Johnson tends to go forward a lot, and their goalkeeper is not completely reliable. Even Ferdinand has a relatively weak season. Anyway I do feel this team is more matured this time, and they have more players who can provide dreadful passing. They are more patience, this is the quality of a champion should have. If they could beat one of the big gun in Round of 16 or Quarter Final, they stand a good chance of winning the cup.
Black Horse: Serbia
We have Croatia in 1998, Senegal, Korea Rep and Turkey in 2002, Australia in 2006. These teams provide us plenty of memories. So which team will be the black horse this year? Though this is the first time world cup comes to Africa, I can’t see any African team to make any breakthrough. South Africa is too weak, Ghana key player is dropped due to injury and fitness, Nigeria is not sufficiently sharp and creative, Ivory Coast was drawn to a group of death, even if they make it through, they could face Spain in Last 16, I can’t see them to go any further than that. Cameroon actually stands the best chance as they should overcome Japan and Denmark, but I can’t see them get passed Italian solid defence should they qualify to the second round. My pick will be Serbia. This team is solid at the back, organized in midfield, and has both height in Zigic and finishing in Pantelic up front. As long as they play to their standard, I fancy them to repeat the fate of Croatian in 1998, which is to reach the semi finals.
Top Scorer: David Villa
Spain has an easy group. Villa should pump in several goals there. The creativity of Spaniard is great enough to allow him to scores. Probably he could benefit from Torres unfitness in the beginning of the tournament to get more chances and score more goals. Van Persie and Messi would come close, but Villa is going to sneak it.
My semi-finalists: Spain, England, Serbia, Netherlands
Coming-up next: Group-by-group analysis
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