2022 FIFA World Cup - Qatar, November 21-December 18

[DavidB.]

Sucks that Wales qualified. Not even a country. The UK should have exactly one team. Was really rooting for Ukraine.

My bold guess:

A
Qatar - 4
Ecuador - 3
Senegal - 2
Netherlands - 1

B
England - 1
Iran - 4
USA - 3
Wales - 2

C
Argentina - 1
Saudi Arabia - 4
Mexico - 2
Poland - 3

D
France - 2
Australia - 3
Denmark - 1
Tunisia - 4

E
Spain - 2
Costa Rica - 3
Germany - 1
Japan - 4

F
Belgium - 2
Canada - 4
Morocco - 3
Croatia - 1

G
Brazil - 2
Serbia - 4
Switzerland - 1
Cameroon - 3

H
Portugal - 1
Ghana - 3
Uruguay - 2
South Korea - 4

But yes, Group F is actually quite juicy.

Together with G the most fun group. I could easily see Morocco take a top 2 spot over either Croatia or Belgium, especially the latter.

[DavidB.]

Incredible how bad Qatar are. Far below expectations. Trained for six months and can barely deliver a successful pass.

[DavidB.]

Literally none of the England team except maybe Trippier could make the Brazil starting XI, and only a few would even make the bench.

This isn't how you spell Bellingham.

Otherwise fully agreed. England are always among the most overrated squads.

[DavidB.]

They looked offside, but they weren't, because Milenkovic doesn't understand how an offside trap works.

Incredible how Serbia defended with such a high line on a 1-3 advantage and then took out their fastest CB Pavlovic too. Compare this to Croatia's much more mature handling of its 1-3 advantage against Canada. That is the difference between success and failure.

[DavidB.]

Meanwhile, the Belgian squad have had a crisis meeting because the players apparently hate each other. Juicy details are being leaked. Kevin De Bruyne and Thibaut Courtois "haven't spoken for years", strikers Romelu Lukaku and Michy Batshuayi are "not best friends" and Eden Hazard and Leandro Trossard ("everyone in Belgium thinks I should play" but Hazard is actually playing) also don't talk. In an interview, Hazard had apparently blamed the bad results on the old, slow center backs; after the Morocco game, center back Jan Vertonghen implicitly hit back by saying the lack of chances created "was also our fault, or not?" 🍿🍿🍿🍿 I expect this chapter to close after the Croatia game.

https://twitter.com/rtlinfo/status/1597287227008045056

[DavidB.]

Infidels played like crap and will be torn apart by the first real team they meet.

Which won't be The Netherlands. Fully expecting the U.S. to advance to the quarter finals against us. The Dutch squad isn't lacking creativity - the problem is Van Gaal refuses to give creative players (Berghuis, Lang, Simons, Frimpong) game time and prefers mediocre players who play it safe (De Roon, Klaassen, Koopmeiners). As a result, our football is un-Dutch and completely unwatchable. Lazy, defensive, result-oriented football, only successful because of glimpses of the class De Jong and Gakpo have. By contrast, the U.S. squad seems young, eager and energetic, and the squad looks coherent. One of the biggest surprises of the World Cup to me so far.

[DavidB.]

It seems pretty clear to see what the quarter finals could look like already:

Netherlands/U.S. vs. Argentina
Spain vs. Brazil
England vs. France
Croatia vs. Portugal

Don't think any of the (currently) second-placed team except for the U.S. can take on any of the group winners. But of course, part of the fun in football is that anything can happen.

[DavidB.]

Being proven wrong seldom felt so good. 🇳🇱