Road to World Cup – Group A
France
Les Bleus were the runners up in 2006, but it will be a great achievement for them if they can make it past the group stage. Not that this is a very tough group, not that they don’t have talented players, but their coach Domenech can really screw this talented team(He has already done so with a bizarre selection by not including Nasri in the squad). Yeah Domenech was the coach is 2006, but the man who took France to the final was none other than the legend Zinedine Zidane. And without him in the Euro 2008, Les Bleus failed to go beyond the group stage. They faced stronger teams like Netherlands and Italy. Though the opponents may not be strong, France really don’t look like a team that can score and win but rather like a team that can defend and draw matches.
Players to watch out for – Franck Ribery, Yoann Gourcuff, Florent Malouda, Patrice Evra
Uruguay
Former world champions missed 2006 World Cup and are back in the scene again though they can reach knock out stages, they won’t stay for long. At least they can make some improvement compared to dismal show in 2002. They scraped through to qualify for this World Cup only to be saved by Chile and had to play a playoff against Costa Rica for the fifth place. They have a quality striker, Forlan who has been in fantastic form for Atletico Madrid.
Players to watch out for – Diego Forlan, Luis Suarez
Mexico
Probably the only team in the group that can be confident of advancing to the next stage. They did fairly well qualifying comfortably. Having not missed a World Cup since 1990, they are among the consistent performers though they haven’t made any big impact on the big stage. In the past 4 World Cups, they had made it to the knockout stage, though they never went past that stage. They were pretty decent in the recent friendly matches against England and Netherlands though they lost both the matches.But that was largely because of poor defending. Their attacking options look good.
Players to watch out for – Andres Guardado, Giovani Dos Santos
South Africa
Being the hosts they were automatically qualified. But this team has been quite unpredictable. They failed to qualify for 2010 African Nations Cup but they did play well in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. They made it very tough for Brazil and Spain to beat them last year and similar performance this year can take them to the next round. However they could become the first host nation in World Cup that fails to go beyond group stage.
Players to watch out for – Steven Pienaar
Among these four countries, I believe Mexico will emerge as the group winners. The fight for second place will be very close. I wish South Africa do make it to the next round.
