(My) World Cup Predictions

These are my predictions. I challenge you to make yours (the website: https://ultra.zone/2018-FIFA-World-Cup-Group-Stage.html.gz#group=h). Feel free to express your disagreement.











--------------------- 1/8 FINALS
URU 1-1(P) POR
FRA 2-0 CRO
BRA 2-1 SWE
BEL (E)1-0 SEN

SPA 1-0 RUS
ARG (E)1-0 DEN
GER 2-0 SWI
COL (P)1-1 ENG
--------------------- 1/4 FINALS
POR (P)0-0 FRA
BRA 1-0 BEL

SPA 3-0 ARG
GER (E)2-0 COL
--------------------- 1/2 FINALS
POR 1-2 BRA

SPA 1-0 GER
--------------------- FINAL; 3RD PLACE
BRA 2-1 SPA

POR 0-3 GER

Golden ball: Neymar
Golden boot: Neymar, Muller, Mertens (5 goals)
Golden glove: De Gea
Best young player: Sane

This is as of now. I will probably change it slightly after preparatory matches, and possible injuries.

 

Coach: Tite

 

This is not the best XI players who i think will perform the best, but predicted line up so considering general rule of thumb (FIFA's bias), Thiago Silva, if Brazil wins it, as they do in my predictions, doesnt even have to play extraordinarly well to get a recognition. Having few highlights moment and showing a bit of leadership (while not making obvious, huge, defensive mistakes) will be enough for him to snatch the place in best XI, unless someone outperforms him by a lot, which is possible, but i have to choose one scenario..

I doubt they will go for 3 in defense. Someone will be along side Ramos for sure!

 

What do you consider a surprise for Egypt?
They are not having particularly heavy group so even topping their group shouldnt come as a huge surprise.. furthermore, if they are first they are going against Portugal in 1/8 finals and potentially France in 1/4 finals. If they are second they are going against Spain.... they do have in-form Salah, but i dont see them being relevant against big teams at all... Elneny is injured btw (i think).

 

I am going to start a daily countdown of top 10 teams in my opinion and will leave a comment for each one on what do i expect of them. I mostly do this to write down my thoughts so, once WC finishes, i could objectively see what thing i was right about and what things i overlooked, but you can add your comment if you want to:

Power ranking:

10. Uruguay - Fairly versatile team with a very strong mentality and few exceptional talents. They will give a difficult time to whoever they play against. I am not sure they have a weak point in their team, but if i had to point out one part of their team it would have to be wide players (wingers and fullbacks). Cristian Rodriguez is in his 30s declining and excluding him, as far as i know, they dont have a good, flamboyant winger(s) to bring a breath of fresh air with individual quality (pace, dribbling). Bentancur is not a solution imo, he is better in the middle. They are thin with fullbacks as well. I believe that that lack of wide options in attack will cost them doing anything major in WC, tho they will be competitive as always. I expect high scoring games from them vs low to medium quality teams and quite opposite vs the best teams, very tough, agressive and destructive matches. Bentancur is the most interesting player to watch imo. Along side him, Muslera and Cavani will be crucial players for them (because i expect that Suarez, Godin and Gimenez will be great no matter what). If those two really perform, they can do surprising stuff.

 

9. England - I don't think England is enjoying particularly great generation of players. They are short on central midfielders. Henderson has never reached his predecessor's (Gerrard) quality, Dier is yet to explode and Loftus-Cheek only just started getting first team football for a senior club. Their central defensive options are not much better either, Cahill, Jones, Stones,.. They have basically only three top, established, consistent players: Kane, Walker and Sterling (I am not convinced by Alli's quality at all). That's really not that impressive relative to what England represents. Uruguay is up there with them talent-wise. Furthermore, they are jumping from one system to a another virtually every single game. They don't have a clear vision of how they want to play. That's proven by the fact that they are not playing well as a team recently. They scored only 18 goals in 10 games in qualifiers while being in the group with: Slovakia, Scotland, Slovenia, Lithuania and Malta. That's unimpressive. Kane is good, but not so good to lead this team to some sort of success. When big games come around i think he will perform just like vs Juve, good, but not good enough. I just can't see how those players could do something major in WC. I expect them burning out under pressure like Brazil 4 years ago,.. okay, maybe not quite like that, but something in that context. Few individual mistakes in wrong time and that will do it. That's not quite congruent with my predictions above, but if somehow they get past Colombia, that's the future that awaits them vs Germany, burning out.

 

True, but i still think Ramos at this point is widely considered to be a better player than Pique so i think he has more chance.

 

8. Portugal - Team with a very good combination of experienced and young players. They also have all types of players, therefore options, decent supporting players and amazing talents. I think they are very good team in the right frame of mind after winning last Euro. They don't have pressure, nobody expects anything from them and those are exact roots that let you flourish. I don't agree with all choices Fernando Santos have made, but it's not devastating. Only concern i have is if they are too experienced in some places. Pepe 35, Fonte 34, Bruno Alves 36 are not prime years, not even for a defender. Problem is that two of them will definitely play leaving a huge question mark on what can we expect in defense, which will be key. Quaresma is not getting any younger and Ronaldo has never been as limited in his career, tho, i believe he has never been as experienced (read clutch) as well. Anything other than conservative approach, that they showed in Euro, will be a huge surprise. They are not going out there to outplay teams. They will sit back and hope that wingers, individually, can make a difference (which Guedes, Quaresma, Martins and Bernardo Silva can do) and then cross ball to a goalscoring phenomenon, C.Ronaldo, who will once again, top all shot attempts statistics. It's not a particularly fun strategy to watch, but it's the one that made them European champions. Spoiler alert, it won't work in WC. Anyhow, they will be a very annoying team to play against cuze they are tough. I expect minimum 3 goals by CR in this WC. Bernardo Silva will definitely get few highlights reels,... but they mostly come down to how that old defense will react early on, plus Rui Patricio's form.

 

7. Croatia - I am from Croatia so i know our situation pretty well. We have some exceptional individuals, but we also have some chronic problems in the way we play. Dalić, our new manager, slightly dealt with those problems vs Greece/Ukraine, but i am not sure if that was intentional at all. The truth is that, atm, i have no idea how we will play. Problems are:

1. Too many similar players in midfield
Our previous manager was forcing a slow possesion game so he was putting 4, basically, same type of players (Badelj, Modrić, Rakitić, Brozović) in our first XI and he did it in a way that Modrić was the deepest of them all (the closest to our defense), meaning he could not go forward and do what he is so great at, attacking space with off the ball movements (search for his assist to Ronaldo's second goal in last ucl final vs Juve, he has an amazing sense of space. Zidane knows that. He always had it tho. Also search for Modrić vs Arsenal when he was in Dinamo Zagreb). So that right there was a huge waste of Modrić's talent, furthermore, he was forcing Brozović as a right winger. He is versatile, but he ain't quick enough for a winger. Rakitić is also too immobile for attacking mid. Now Dalić solved that a bit by pulling Rakitić deeper, sort of a Busquets' type of role (which i really like him at) and he pushed Modrić forward giving him an offensive freedome. Plus he went for Kramarić as a winger, which is better solution.

2. We dont attack with fullbacks; left fullback
We tend to play with either 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3, which are formations that are begging you to put fullbacks forward, especially if you rely on patient combinatorics (as we do) rather than counter attacks. Plus left fullback is a huge problem for us. Borna Sosa will be a great option in future, but right now Strinić and Pivarić are not doing the trick.

3. Incongruity of defense and midfield
In midfield we have great players that enjoy having the ball so we try to outplay others through patient passing game, but the problem is that none of our back 4 enjoys such style, they are not composed enough with the ball in their feet so what happens are mistakes, awkward positionating and dead/uncreative posession. We would be much better of if we let go off possesion idea and we tried to counter attack others through high quality, inteligent long balls. We have players that can pass and players that can run and win 1 on 1 situations (Perišić, Pjaca, Rebić, Brekalo,..). Ofc, ocassionally having posession would be great to add variety, but that's not our true forte, it's direct passing

4. Mentality
This generation of players tend to bottle it just like Belgium. I am not sure how much relevant that is..

In summary, we have a great team with even greater potential, but with a wrong identity. We might fix that tho and then we will be truely dangerous,. so be prepared world, be prepared.

 

will need to redo group a predictions due to Mo's injury

 

I am not sure about that