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Post by Aris on May 18, 2010 6:38:06 GMT 2
Well gentlemen, with the World Cup just around the corner, I'm surprised I haven't seen any discussion about it anywhere in the "General Chat" section of the forum. A lot of collectors here are residents of countries that will be participating in the World Cup, so, it would be interesting to hear these people's opinion as to what they think will happen in WC 2010. There are 32 countries participating in the World Cup. These countries have been divided up into 8 groups (A, B, C, D, E, F, G & H) of 4 teams each. Each team within a group will play each other once and the top two teams in each group advance to the second round, also known as the Round of 16. After the Round of 16 comes the Quarter-Finals, then the Semi-Finals, then Third Place, and lastly, the Finals. Some of the countries that we have collector representation here include: England Greece Netherlands Australia France Germany Japan USA Denmark Switzerland Spain Below, you'll find a list of all 8 groups. Group G is considered this WC's Group of Death, though, I think Group D could also be worthy of that title. Group ASouth Africa Mexico Uruguay France Group BArgentina Nigeria South Korea Greece Group CEngland USA Algeria Slovenia Group DGermany Australia Serbia Ghana Group ENetherlands Denmark Japan Cameroon Group FItaly Paraguay New Zealand Slovakia Group GBrazil North Korea Ivory Coast Portugal Group HSpain Switzerland Honduras Chile So, who do you think will win it all? Will it be Spain? Brazil?? England??? or Argentina? How about Italy? Netherlands?? Germany??? or Portugal? Or maybe one of the African nation can finally hoist the trophy as Pele has predicted? Can Greece pull of another Euro 2004, or do miracles only happen once in a lifetime? It will be interesting to see people's choices for who will advance to the Round of 16. As well, who will finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th. Which team(s) do you think is the most overrated & most underrated? And lastly, which team(s) do you consider to be a dark horse and will surprise in this year's World Cup? AC
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Post by rensmits on May 18, 2010 11:37:14 GMT 2
Lets start with the dark horse. I think it will be Ivory Coast. Some fantastic players like Drogba and Kalou. Great team and they have the experience now.
The winner of the world cup 2010 will probably be Spain. By far the best team at the moment. Italy and Germany are always great in tournaments. Not the best players, but great in building a team and they are mentally very strong. I don't think that Argentina will get far, because they have the greatest idiot as a coach. Maradona was maybe the best player ever, but as a coach he's a joker. The best player in the world, Messi, can't change that. So, Argentina will go out in the second round.
England will defeat itself, some scandals in the Sun, as will my team (the Netherlands). The Dutch team always lose because of internal fights.
Brasil will be an outsider this year. No big stars.
Lets not forget the home country. The home country always goes a long way. They often have some help from the referees. All for the commercial benefits!
My whole country will be orange again during the world cup. These tournaments are always a big party here in the Netherlands.
But first the the big final of the Champ. league. Inter by the hand of Sneijder and Bayern by the hand of Robben. I hope Bayern will win, I just dislike Inter.
René
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Post by mpanayiotakis on May 18, 2010 22:32:24 GMT 2
Just to answer your question Aris, no, Greece can't pull another success like the euro 2004. We have many new players in the team, most of them rather inexperienced and from what I've seen in the preliminaries our team isn't as strong as it was 6 years ago.. Our defense is lacking and we are in a rather difficult group. I think we will finish 3rd or 4th in our group. Spain is the absolute favorite this year of course. Amazing team and lots of talent! We will see a few surprises of course because let's face it there aren't many untouchable teams in the world right now. Germany has lots of problems and rather mediocre players compared to the great german teams of the past, England are always underachievers for no special reason, Brazil and Argentina don't play great football any more, France will be lucky to get through round one. I like the chances of Portugal, Italy, Netherlands and Serbia but we will see! Anyway, what teams do you think will reach the semi-finals? Let's make this a competition! :smile: Aris can you tell us how winners of each group will face each other? Michael
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Post by pheldge on May 18, 2010 23:58:22 GMT 2
Lets not forget the home country. The home country always goes a long way. They often have some help from the referees. All for the commercial benefits! That's why (or how) France became champion in '98 ;D. But this time they got another advantage : they have hands... ;D.
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Post by andycole on May 19, 2010 10:36:49 GMT 2
A wallchart with all the games can be seen here: World cup WallchartsIt's interesting to see that Spain, should they win group H as expected, will meet the runners up of the group of death, likely to be Brazil or Portugal, I would think. Amazing to think that one of these 3 big teams will not make it past the second round. My prediction, for what it's worth (I know very little about football ) for the quarter finals is: South Africa England Argentina USA Netherlands Portugal Italy Spain Semi finals: Portugal, England, Argentina,Spain. England have a pretty easy route this far but as we all know, they defeat themselves. They always mess it up some way or another. Usually they don't play to win. It sounds stupid but that's the way I always see it. The idea of football is to score as many goals as possible. England don't play that way and it usually ends in tears! They really shouldn't reach the semi's but they were lucky in their placement. I heard on the news this morning that some supercomputer has calculated all the permutations and the winner will be: ENGLAND! With Spain in second place and Netherlands third. Likely story! Andy
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Post by mpanayiotakis on May 20, 2010 1:37:08 GMT 2
LOL! Is the supercomputer located in England? ;D
I think Portugal and Spain will win their groups so we will probably see Brazil playing against Spain in the next round! I don't see how Spain will miss the semi-finals so this should be the first team. The second team could be a surprise.. like Serbia. They have a very strong team and surely they can go far in this tournament of mediocre teams.. Italy rarely miss semi-finals so this is my third team. I'm not sure about the fourth one though.. 4 european teams in the semi-finals? I don't think so.. Maybe Argentina can go as far as the semis? Doubtful but who knows?
Michael
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Post by andycole on May 20, 2010 10:58:20 GMT 2
Yeah, it might have been! It was a computer that they normally use to study the financial markets. I think it was either in the UK or USA. Mike, I don't think your choices are possible. Italy and Spain are likely to win their groups, and then would meet each other in the Quarters (Match D). Otherwise I would agree about Italy. Then again, it would be just like the crafty Italians to purposely come second in their group, so that they would meet the winners of group G instead of Spain. It depends on who they fancy beating! It's certainly an interesting draw this year. Andy
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Post by bacco on May 21, 2010 12:31:24 GMT 2
Hi Guys!
It's been a while since I've been here...
Ahh yes another world cup has come around and the 64 thousan dollar question is who will win it? Well there is an interesting winning pattern that has been going on for 48 yrs now. If I was to apply this pattern then the winner of 2010 will come from a south american team. Why you ask? Because the team that one it last came from europe (italy) Check out the following pattern:
2006 - Europe (Italy) 2002 - South America (Brazil) 1998 - Europe (France) 1994 - South America (Brazil) 1990 - Europe (West Germany) 1986 - South America ( Argentina) 1982 - Europe (Italy) 1978 - South America (Argentina) 1974 - Europe (West Germany) 1970 - South America ( Brazil) 1966 - Europe (Engalnd) 1962 - South America (Brazil)
So what do you think? Brazil or Argentina? ;D
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Post by andycole on May 21, 2010 14:20:15 GMT 2
That's a really interesting stat!
However, perhaps this year we will see the pattern broken, as this will be the first time the championships have been held in Africa. I think that the climate and conditions have a lot to do with it and these conditions will be alien to many of the teams.
Andy
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Post by mpanayiotakis on May 24, 2010 19:41:17 GMT 2
Yes, I think too the pattern will be broken this year. There are just no good teams in America right now. Argentina may have the players but they don't have a team and a coach, Brazil will present by far the weakest team they have ever had in World Cup finals, Paraguay and Uruguay are the ghosts of the great teams of the past. Even with the help of the referees I can't see any of them winning the cup. I think Spain deserves to win it this year but we will see..
Michael
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Post by pheldge on May 26, 2010 1:18:43 GMT 2
Well, it all depends if you only see this as "a pattern", or if you're ready to admit it as "the Da Vinci Code" of the world cup.
Couldn't you imagine that all is already written ? Did you really believe that France was worth winning the cup if they had not organized it ?
Ok, I'm out... ;D ;D
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Post by mpanayiotakis on May 26, 2010 19:55:04 GMT 2
Well, I'm sure that everyone who's watching these tournaments for some time now knows that there were instances where something "fishy" was going on. The truth is though that only a very good team can win this cup even with the help of the referees. Maybe some of the winners of the past had help but you can't deny that they were all very good (if not great) teams..
Michael
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Post by Aris on May 27, 2010 6:03:12 GMT 2
A friend of mine keeps reminding me of that so-called pattern, every time I mention a team from Europe will win. It's hard to overlook a team like Spain. They seem to be hands-down favourite in most "expert's" eyes. And rightfully so. Didn't they have some winning streak of like 34 or 35 consecutive wins? And of all teams, the USA broke that string of wins! If I were to pick a team other than Spain, I'd probably go with Brazil and if Rooney doesn't do anything silly like he did 4 years ago, I really like England, despite their reputation of being chokers in the quarters/semis. Two teams I don't like this World Cup are Italy and Portugal. The problem with that Group of Death (Group G) is that whoever comes second, will have to face Spain in the Round of 16. Unless of course, Spain comes second in their group, then, whoever wins Group G, will have to play Spain. I think most people have Brazil winning Group G, and either Ivory Coast or Portugal coming second. And I'd be very surprised if anyone would pick Spain to finish anywhere other than first in Group H. Second should go to Chile, but, you never know, Maybe the Swiss come second. I also like Serbia as a dark horse for this tournament. And I think even a team like Paraguay might surprise. And yeah, somewhere in there, you have to pick at least one African team to go fairly deep. I mean sheesh, if Japan and South Korea did it in 2002, surely Africa can do it too! I've been flip-flopping with my picks, but as of right now, I like: Group A - Mexico and South Africa Group B - Argentina and Nigeria Group C - England and USA Group D - Germany and Serbia Group E - Netherlands and Cameroon Group F - Paraguay & Italy Group G - Brazil & Ivory Coast Group H - Spain & Chile I'm having a hard time keeping France out of my picks for Group A, but, I'm only doing it because apparently, no host nation has ever NOT qualified for the second round. I'm giving the edge to Nigeria over Greece strictly based on home-field advantage. I'm not a big fan of the US soccer team, and a part of me thinks Slovenia might just beat them, but, most of me thinks the US will beat Slovenia. If I didn't like Serbia so much, I would have picked Ghana to advance in Group D. I'll never count out the Germans, they almost ALWAYS perform well at World Cup tourneys! Ghana is probably the more logical choice given the fact that they're playing at home, and, they're the defending under 20 World Cup champs, but, Serbia's defense is amazing, and if they don't qualify, they may be one of the best teams to not go on to the round of 16. And the only other difficult choice was taking Cameroon over Denmark. I think either one of these teams can come 2nd, but I think The Netherlands will come first for sure, and I'm hoping for a deep run for the Dutch. On offense alone, they could win it all! But, we all know it takes more than just a great offense to win an event like the World Cup. I have England playing Germany in one Semi, and Brazil playing Spain in the other Semi. England vs Spain in the final, with Spain winning it all. There you have it, that's my prediction as of May 27th 2010. I'm sure it will change as early as tomorrow! AC out
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Post by sinkbaek on May 27, 2010 17:03:06 GMT 2
I don't think they'll be able to win it. But I think The Netherlands could go a pretty long way this year...and it is the World Cup, so anything could happen. Anyways... I'm sure the matches they're in will be worth watching. Just sucks that they're in the same group as Denmark
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Post by mpanayiotakis on May 29, 2010 1:39:08 GMT 2
Serbia could be the winners of group D and Portugal could win group G so I'm sure these teams will go through. I don't understand why you chose Ivory coast - it's a mediocre team. They did nothing in the last world cup and I don't think this will change now. And I prefer Switzerland over Chile in the last group. Switzerland have a pretty solid team - nothing remarkable but very difficult to beat nonetheless.
Anyway, I agree that Serbia might be the surprise of this tournament..
Michael
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