Road to World Cup – Group F

Italy

Pirlo and Buffon

The current World Champions are clearly not among the favorites to win again this time and they are really nowhere near the other teams. They were extremely lucky in 2006. First they should have never went past knockout stage and secondly an act of madness by Zidane in the final gifted them the World Cup. Clearly one of the most boring teams, they have been lucky enough to be a group which looks very easy. They have consistently performed well at the World Cup having wont it 4 times, but this time they will have a tougher test in the later rounds. Marcelo Lippi is a world class coach but he cannot repeat the success of 2006. Pirlo has been struggling a bit with injuries and he is one of the players whom Italy wouldn’t want to miss. There are so many top players but the way they play has rarely been entertaining.
Click here to see their successful World Cup campaign in 2006.
Key Players: Andrea Pirlo, Daniele de Rossi, Alberto Gilardino, Gennaro Gattuso, Gianluigi Buffon.

Paraguay
Unlike Brazil and Argentina, they are not a classy team from South America. There aren’t too many well known players yet they did finish above Argentina in the qualification. They have been Copa America champions in the past and qualified 8 times for World Cup. But their performances in the previously has never been good at this level though they make do better this time. Their coach Gerardo Martino is well known in Paraguay but not well known outside South America. Yet, he has managed to do well during his 3 years stay.
Key Players: Roque Santa Cruz, Juste Villar.

Slovakia
Probably the second best team in this group and just a bit better than Paraguay. Defensively Slovakia are a strong team and they can make their opponents to sweat a lot to beat them. They did pretty well in the qualification. They may not be a strong team in Europe but still they cannot be underestimated. Their coach Vladimir Weiss is again not a well known coach but he was a part of the former Czechoslovakia team that played in 1990 World Cup.
Key Players: Martin Skrtel, Marek Hamsik.

New Zealand
One thing that can be said for sure is New Zealand have no chance of qualifying or may be even score a point. One of the weakest teams playing in this edition have once played World Cup way back in 1982. They played in last year’s Confederations Cup and the draw against Iraq was their best result. But reaching the World Cup is obviously a great achievement as they finished at the top in the Oceanic region and then had to beat Bahrain in a playoff to secure a place.
Key Players: Ryan Nelson, Chris Killen.

Italy are the clear favorites in this group. The fight for second place can be a bit close and Slovakia might just do it.