Australia Cote d'Ivoire Ghana Iran Japan Korea Mexico Tunisia USA other (Angola, Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia, Togo, Trinidad & Tobago) Mexico, Iran, Korea, Tunisia have easier groups. Of those, the only ones I would consider putting money on advancing would be Mexico and Korea. I think Mexico is good enough to place in the final 8, but they will have to go up against a team from Group C (could be Argentina or Holland). Although, they have shown that they can go toe-to-toe with the best teams in tournament play (Italy in 02, Brazil and Argentina in Confed Cup). So who knows. The Ivory Coast look like an excellent team, but they are in a terrible group. I don't expect to see them place in the final 16. In any other group, I would fancy their chances to make a decent run. Though the US keeps improving, I don't like their chances against the Czechs and Italy. And I don't know what to make of Ghana after their poor ANC performance. I don't know what to make of Australia, Iran, Japan and Tunisia. I think they are capable of respectable performances, but I'm guessing they will fall just shy of making round 2. Ultimately, my prediction will be Mexico (they will somwhere #9 and #12 in the tournament). So in other words, I think the traditional WC powers will reclaim the tournament in Germany.
Out of that list I say the USA, Mexico, and Tunisia advance to the round of 16, all in 2nd place in their group, but go no further.
The US has a better chance of finishing top in their group (thereby avoiding Brasil in the last of sixteen) than Mexico does of either beating Holland or Argentina. Grant it Mexico always seems to play these two teams hard, but they USUALLY can't muster anything more than a tie.
Korea. Togo is falling to pieces and Switzerland is hardly impossible. Then, once they're in the second round, they've got Ukraine or Spain. I could more easily see Korea beating the Ukraine or Spain than Mexico beating Holland or Argentina.
This is the best Iran Team in history. If we get past Mexico in our opening match — I'm sure it will be a great World Cup for us.
Mexico will also have its best team in history, so will the U.S., so will Brazil, and many other countries too.
Mexico is the easy money because they got an easy draw. Korea did well on home soil, but I don't trust that they'll be good in Germany yet. Everybody counting the US out is crazy. Sure, we've sucked in Europe, but most of games are from 2003 or earlier. The real questions as to whether the US can win (yes, WIN) its group is whether it can 1) hold the ball on offense and 2)score. Things are looking up on both fronts, although Eddie Johnson showing he really has the form he has tempted us with will be key to scoring. If Claudio and McBride can hold the ball in the other teams' halves, we can at least draw with Czech Republic and CERTAINLY beat Italy (overrated because their European) and Ghana (who people are only afraid of because they know nothing about the African teams). The US starting 11 (maybe even 12 or 13) can finally keep us in a game with anybody. Now, we just have to be able to play for points. Final word: if the US wins its group, you can't count us out of the semis. Nobody else on that list will have that chance...and I'm not one to claim "we're SOOOO much better than Mexico!!!!"
Ivory Coast is the best team, but they have a tough group and prob won't get out. US hasn't got a chance since they won't get out of their group either! I don't know why so many USMNT fans seem to think they will win the WC! Others, not worth discussing which leaves Iran and Mexico. It's choice between the two. I'm gonna go with Iran based on Mexico's recent performance.
Depends on where you set the bar. As an Aussie who was 13 the last time we qualified just being in the finals is a good result. Anything else is a bonus.
Iran have surprised everyone by qualifying for WC 2006 so i think they are going to surprise eve more people
what are you talking about? I don't know anybody who was surprised that they qualified. They are widely considered in the top 2-3 of Asian football. No surprises there. If anything, I was surprised they didn't qualify in 2002 (cough, rigged for China, cough, cough)...
I woulda thought Saudi Arabia or some of the other teams are better than Iran, they certainly surprised me and quite a lot of people i know
Errm in Asia, Iran is the #1 team of all time. We have the best head to head record out of all the Asian teams. All time Asian Cup standings http://www.rdasilva.demon.co.uk/football/asc/asc_stat.html Team P W D L GF GA GDIF PTS % 1 Iran 50 29 15 6 100 37 +63 102 68.0 2 South Korea 44 22 10 12 76 50 +26 76 57.6 3 China 41 15 11 15 65 44 +21 56 45.5 it's not even close! All time World Cup Qualifying http://www.rdasilva.demon.co.uk/football/wc/wcq_stat.html Iran is 2nd after SK and 17th in the world. Iran has a record 3 Asian cups (as does Saudi Arabia and now Japan, but Iran has made it at least to the semies every single time they participated except once while the others have gotten knocked out in the group stages quite a few times) Iran has a record 4 Asian games titles never mind the 2nd and 3rd place finishes. South Korea is 2nd with 2 less titles. the rest are way behind. With 7 Asian titles no one can reach Iran in Asia. Also as for the world cups Iran just started participating in 1973 when there was only 1 representitive from both Asia and Oceania and also Israel and a few other teams were in Asia, Iran finished 1st in Asia and had to meet Australia in a play off ala 98 wc, Iran won in Iran but Australia won in Australia so they advanced with a 3-2 aggregate (we still have a superior head to head record against them tho as we avanged that defeat with 4 victories later). In 78 Iran dominated Asia/Oceania and went to the world cup as the sole representitive of the 2 continents. Before the tourney they tied eventual champions Argentina, and beat France. In the first WC game we had to face last WC's runner up's Holland, there they only lost by a few penalties. After the game the players said the penalties the ref gave Holland would not have been called fouls in our league. (lack of WC experience) Then they tied the best Scotland team in their history 1-1 (Scotland's goal was an own goal by our defender otherwise we would have won that game). Then in the last matc h they lost to Peru. (Believe it or not Peru is the only South American team that has a winning record against Iran thanks to that victory, Not Brazil not Argentina not Uruguay not Paraguay but Peru!) Iran dominated the Asian football scene in the entire 70's as they won 3 back to back Asian cups and just when they were getting even better and better the revolution and the war happend. 80-88 Iran-Iraq war, best years of Iranian football gone to waste. Iran didn't compete in the qualifires for the 82 world cup and they disqualified Iran for refusing to play their home matches away for the 86 cup. Ironically at Iran's expense Iraq the side that we were fighting against made it to the world cup in that year! 90 went out just because of goal difference. 94 the only year we didn't deserve to qualify as after beating Japan and North Korea we did lose to SK and Saudi Arabia. That Iran-Saudi match was the only 1 I give saudi's credit for, as they beat us clean 4-3. 98 we qualified. Yoguslavia got lucky not to lose and made the best out of a free kick and got away with a 1-0 win eventhough they themselves admitted that they didn't deserve it at all. Then we beat USA, and a loss to Germany eventhough the first half finished as a draw, but we gave up 2 bad goals in the 2nd half. 02 what can I say? Stupid seedings, UAE got seeded and not us for crying out loud, and eventhough we beat our group's seeds Saudi Arabia we lost to the minnows Bahrain when we only needed a point to qualify and had to do the play offs. After beating UAE 4-0 we went on to face Ireland and a stupid penalty call in Dublin and dozens of missed one on ones (Karimi was inexperience back then and ********ed up at least 3 100% goals) cost us that series as we lost 2-0 in Dublin and our 1-0 victory in Tehran didn't help. 06 we qualified and we shall see how we fare this time, the nation's hopes are high and almost everybody is expecting a Turkey 02 like performance! but with our federation and the politic world it will be very hard to achieve.
I'm not criticising Iran's record (which is a pretty good one) but you didn't win Asia in 1973. You won one of 4 groups. Iran and Australia played in a semi final. Australia went on to play South Korea for a spot in Germany after Iran. Only Australia and New Zealand entered from OFC that time so there were Asian teams in Australia's group. It wasn't an OFC/AFC playoff. It was a fully combined qualifying system
Costa Rica beating out Poland and Ecuador for 2nd in their group would not exactly be a shock of monumental proportions.
whoa easy there tiger....iran is not the king of asia anymore. japan beat you out to top the group, won the last asiancup, did respectable at the confed cup, qualfied to the last 3 wc...many without a biased opinion would say japan AND korea are better than iran. saying iran is better because they did more historically is like saying Peru is better than Ecuador. they might have more history football wise but their team is not as good as ours today. second my friend you are in a group with mexico and portugal. prepare to pack early if you think your iran is all that.
Pfft we won the only game that mattered, the first leg when both countries fielded their A team, by the 2nd leg both teams had already qualified so we fielded our domestic players (heck even then it wasn't our best domestic players, our league's top scorer as well as our league's mvp didn't play in that game) Ask anyone in Asia (the Japanese included) that which team deserved to win the cup. Go read back on the Asian cup threads from a few months back. Iran dominated the tournament, the refs screwed Iran and even then it took PK shoot outs for the host country China to beat 9 men Iran who had started the game with 5 of the regular starters missing anyways. Iran finished the tourney undefeated (PK loss counts as a tie according to FIFA ) That very same team they took to confed cup lost to Iran. Correction, qualified to 2. They hosted 1. Yeah if you are new to the game and base your opinions only on what you saw in the last world cup. (Iran ended Ireland's 17 game unbeaten streak and Ireland also went undefeated in the cup again refer to my PK shoot outs reference) The last time we played Ecuador we won, the last time we played Peru we lost. Haha not saying that Peru is better just thought I point that out LOL thats one of the best groups we could have hoped for. Mexico along with Spain were the weakest seeds, Angola is the tourney's worst team along with togo and T&T, and Portugal's style is perfect for our style, remember how Iraq owned them with 4 goals in the olympics? Their playing style is a lot like us, they are the only team in the ME that play like us, eventhough weaker but very similar, in fact I am more confident about a win against Portugal than I am about Mexico. My honest prediction is that I believe we will finish with 7 points after 2 wins against Angola and Portugal and a tie with Mexico, my only concern is which team we will face in the next round.
Mexico for me - possibly as far as the semis. U.S.A - maybe because they do play well as a unit without a lot of stars. Ivory Coast looks the most likely of the African sides. IIRC the Portugal group isn't that strong. I predict that Australia will draw with both Croatia and Japan, but Japan will sneak past Croatia to get through to round 2. Where they will meet Italy I think. Its getting harder to predict because many nations best XI is improving fairly quickly. While the established nations still need to strike a good balance with their sides and the right mix on the park. Holland to win the cup.