World Cup 2010 – Preview – Part 1

As an ex-pat Englishman I love my football (soccer to my American friends). 

One of my earliest memories of watching football on TV was when the World Cup was held in England in 1966 – I was 10.  I remember the England – Argentina Quarter-Final game when Sir Alf Ramsey, England manager called the Argentine players  “animals” after a very vicious game which England won 1-0, and I remember the final, especially, when in extra time Geoff Hurst’s goal (England’s third) caused such controversy, as many people didn’t think that it crossed the line.

Four years later I remember some amazing moments from the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, especially the classic game that England and Brazil (the two previous World Champions) played during the group phase – I can still see the amazing save that Geoff Banks made to deny the great Pele, although Brazil went on to win 1-0.  England went through as runners-up and then played West Germany in a replay of the 1966 final.  Leading 2-0 early in the second half it looked like they would go through, but the Germans came back to win 3-2 in extra time avenging their loss in the 1966 final.

England failed to qualify in 1974 and 1978 (although Scotland did qualify in both years).  I remember the 1978 tournament for some wonderful goals and the 6-0 thrashing Argentina gave Peru to qualify for the final.

In 1982, Eileen and I had just started dating and she had to put up with me always wanting to watch the World Cup on TV – rather than go out – our relationship survived that month, but I honestly don’t remember much about that tournament.

In 1986, my wife Eileen was pregnant with our son Andrew, and he was due to be born on the day of the World Cup final.  Luckily Andrew was late – so I didn’t miss it – grin.  The memorable moment of that tournament for me was Maradonna’s “Hand of God” goal which put England out.

Well its another World Cup year – the competition is due to start in 6 days – on our wedding anniversary !! I am looking forward to a great month of football, and hopefully a successful competition for England.

So I thought it would be interesting to preview the competition and give some predictions.

Group A

France, Mexico, Uruguay and hosts South Africa make up this group.  This is a tough group to call.  France have a habit of choking in the big game, although they did make the final in 2006, and South Africa could be the first host not to make it through the group stages.  I predict Mexico and Uruguay will qualify from this group.

Group B

Argentina, Greece, Nigeria and South Korea make up this group.  Argentina struggled through the qualifiers and Maradonna has proven to be an unpredictable coach, but they should win this group, with Nigeria likely to be runners-up.

Group C

Algeria, England, Slovenia, and USA make up this group.  England got lucky with the draw.  Algeria are one of the weaker African teams and Slovenia, one of the weaker European teams.  Even considering my patriotic bias, England and the USA should qualify from this group in that order.

Group D

Australia, Germany, Ghana and Serbia make up this group.  This group is tough to call.  Australia had a much easier qualification process this time as they played in the Asia qualifiers and are definitely the underdogs.  Germany should win on paper, but they have had a spate of injuries to key players.  Ghana are one of the better African teams and Serbia are a dark-horse.  I am going to stick my neck out and predict that Ghana and Serbia will qualify from the group.

In Part 2, I will look back at World Cups from 1990-2006, preview the remaining four groups, and predict the final winners – more fool me!!