who will advance (final prediction)

I don't see Tunisia beating out England for second place. England are young and dynamic, unlike previous eras. And they can score goals out of nothing.

 

This is one of the easiest groups to predict as it contains the one truly bad team in the tournament, Panama.
That leaves Belgium, England and Tunisia. Belgium and England are clearly superior to Tunisia so the teams that advance are quite easy to predict.

Of course in football there is always the good chance of the unexpected and as many as two or three or even more upsets would not be unprecedented. Or a bunch of ties could happen making the final standings of the group very skewed one way or the other,

That is why they actually play the matches.

My final guess for this group is:
Belgium wins all its matches
England wins all its matches except against Belgium
Tunisia looses all its matches except against Panama
Panama looses all its matches without scoring a single goal and has less than 30% possession in its best match.

 

I actually think England and Belgium will draw but Belgium will still go through in 1st place.

 

Belgium and England (anything else would be shocking). I wouldn't mind seeing Poland v England next round, even though Poland has poor record v England, I believe this time Poland would not be without chances. Poland v Belgium on the other hand brings up fond memories (Poland has good record plus best WC performance in my opinion v Belgium in 1982).

 

Belgium and England. Order TBD.

 

I will never buy into this Belguim hype.
I go for England and Tunisia. I will place even a bet on that. Odds are juicy.

 

I feel Tunisia gets a draw vs either England or Belgium, maybe both. They seem good enough to frustrate opposition.

 

Believing this Belgian team is overrated when it comes to chances for winning the WC or getting very far in the knockout stages (semi-finals and so) is understandable. I think we've seen that they often look like less than the sum of individual parts, especially when it gets to knockout matches against strong opposition.

But believing they're overrated to the point of thinking they won't get out of a group with two clearly inferior teams... I really can't say I agree, and it's an especially odd prediction when you consider that they easily cruised through both their WC 2014 and Euro 2016 groups, and their European qualifying group as well. They don't seem as prone to group-stage slip-ups as much as, let's say, Portugal, Italy or England of recent years.

They've shown that while they may not be on the level of Brazil, Germany or France, despite all the big names and the fancy clubs they play in, they're at least good and mentally stable enough to justify their position as favorites when it comes to navigating through a group of lesser opposition.

 

Hoping for Panama, to do another Costa Rica 2014, in this group.

Wouldn't be something cool ?.

Another very under rated Concacaf team eliminating England from the WC....


(very hard to see them getting anything against Belgium, though)

 

They're not playing in Panama City.

 

So what ?

England is also not playing at home either. And particularly in Russia, for them, it is not preciselly the most "cosy" environment (most russians are going to stand against them, no matter what opponent they have)

 

Belgium plays like the US men’s hockey team at previous Olympics. Lots of stars but can’t gel well enough to prevail. Hopefully Martinez can get all the players from all the different English teams together in one mindset. Maybe that’s why they left Naingolan... freaking Italian league... then again Mertens is there.

 

I've seen Panama play. They have heart and can be physical at times, but they're not particularly talented and have an aging squad. They're the kind of team that can play tough at home, but when they go out and play more talented teams, they struggle mightly (like a Bolivia without the height of La Paz). As many problems as England could have, they are still several levels ahead of the canaleros.

 

Sure, but a football match is not determined by odds, but for what happens in the pitch during the 90 minutes the match takes place. And many things will not go as expected. That's one of the beautys of football, and you can never know in advance what will really happen.

Besides, there are some teams that seem to have a certain "expertice" through time, in "flopping" when no one expects it, and as for WC history shows, England is one of the top teams in doing that ....

 

Sure, it's football... but Panama is truly bad. I give tge English a 90% chance of winning and a 70% chance of winning comfortably.

 

Let's spice it up with some scorelines here

Belguim - Panama 5-0
Tunisia - England 1-1
England - Panama 2-0
Belguim - Tunisia 1-2
England - Belguim 1-0
Panama - Tunisia 0-2

Tunisia......................5:2................7
England.....................4:1................7
Belguim.....................6:3...............3
Panama.....................0:9...............0

 

No one argues who is the under dog here.

 

Semifinal 1: Brazil France
Semifinal 2: Russia Germany
Final: Brazil Russia
Winner ?

 

I dont know about Panama but Tunisia are better than say Wales.
Tunisia are ranked so high. Still England and Belgium are the favorites.

 

Funny to think that this group is actually the most highly FIFA ranked

 

Panama & Tunez

in all seriousness Belgium and England

 

Panama is not as bad as everyone is saying I think. Will they beat Belgium or England... not likely but I wouldn’t underestimate them

 

They're probably better than Saudi Arabia.