Group H's General Discussion Thread

I disagree. I think Saudi Arabia are ok. They can be inconsistent, but I wouldn’t look too much into friendlies. They generally had a decent qualification campaign and I think their group was quite tough in qualification for AFC with Japan being arguably one of the top 10 teams in the world, and Australia on the rise.

 

Well i dont know, but in that case Spain - Uruguay will be like a playoff match to avoid Argentina in R32. If Argentina wins the group.

 

You may be right, just they don't have the pedigree. They have one player from a Spanish club, one from Netherlands, and none from England, France or Italy. When we played Ghana in 2010, everybody here knew that it was likely to be tight. Same if we were to play Cameroon, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Morocco or Senegal.

 

If you look at their squad by club, yeah it looks pretty mediocre. They definately punch above their weight.

They will let Uruguay have the ball and hit them on the counter. Their counter attack is pretty efficient.

They dont have the individual talent of a Ghana, but they play better as a team currently.

 

Uruguay is the type of team that can grab a point against Spain but then drop two points against a team like Cabo Verde.

 

Knowing URU and ESP, both teams will rest their squads on MD3, regardless of their R32 opponent. No need to pick up yellows+injuries+fatigue prior to R32.

 

That is assuming Cape Verde does not get a result against Uruguay.

 

Bielsa would never rest the squad in MD3 even if a meteorite falls as shown in the Copa America 2024

 

2024 CA KOs started at R8, while 2026 WC KOs will start at R32. So, fatigue management is a bigger discussion in 2026.

Seeing how URU already ruled out pre-WC friendlies to ward off player fatigue, then I would expect main URU players being rested before KOs.

ESP would be wise to take the same approach. Mutually assured destruction before R32 makes little sense.

 

Indeed.

In fact, Usually Uruguay gets better results expectations are low. Well, right now they are bottom low, but even so I'm still quite pessimistic.

 

I'm not sure a high degree of pessimism is warranted. URU did as well or better in qualifying as anyone else in C'BOL, with the exception of Argentina. Some good results in the latter half of qualifying too its not like they accumulated a bunch of points in 2023 and then stumbled across the finish line.

People will argue that qualifying results don't bear any resemblance to WC results and while there are some classic examples to support that argument, there has been a fairly strong correlation in the previous 2 World Cups - at least with C'BOL qualifiers.

Although I voted for Spain to win the group, I give URU a shot.

 

Spain: One of the top teams and favorites to win the whole World Cup with enormous talent and depth. Their strongest area is the midfield and attack with: Rodri, Gavi, Pedri, Fabian Ruiz, Dani Olmo, Yamal, Nico Williams, Ferran Torres, and Zubimendi. Defense has less depth but very solid. My biggest concern here is this team might have a lack of tactical flexibility when their rythemn gets disrupted and figured out, but overall top team.

Cape Verde: Interesting World Cup debutant. Costa and Cabral are their best players, with some other players that play for mid-low tier clubs in Europe. This team did work hard to qualify for the World Cup and shouldn’t be underestimated, but overall nothing to rave about.

Uruguay: This team has been through a lot of transition over the past cycle but is slowly coming back with Bielsa having been their coach since the 2024 Copa America cycle. Gimenez, Olivera, and Arujo are their key defenders, with a great midfield of Valverde, Bentancur, and Ugarte with Nunez as striker. A bit inconsistent but they’re coming back.

Saudi Arabia: WOW, this team has went through so much drama and changed coaches more than we can count over the past qualification cycle. The advantage is most players play together at club level so there’s chemistry; but it’s hard to know what to expect and recent results have not looked good at all.

This is honestly one of the most straight forward groups in the World Cup. I think it’s pretty clear that Spain wins and Uruguay second. The debate is Saudi Arabia vs Cape Verde. It’s really close, but given the circumstances, I think Cape Verde maybe edges it. That being said, I don’t see either team doing enough to advance as a best third place team. I suppose both get knocked out in the group stage. The gap between Spain & Uruguay vs Cape Verde & Saudi Arabia is just way too large.

Final Predictions:
1. Spain
2. Uruguay
3. Cape Verde
4. Saudi Arabia

 

I think the best way to look at them is this way: who have they played that's anywhere near World Cup Quality the past 4-5 years?


Senegal:
AFCON '21 (took place in January '22): 0-2 Loss in Round of 16

Ghana:
AFCON '23: 2-1 Group Stage Win

Egypt:
AFCON '23: 2-2 Draw

Nigeria
WCQ '22: 1-2 Loss at home, 1-1 Draw Away

Cameroon:
AFCON '21: 1-1 Draw
WCQ '24-'25: 1-0 Win Home, and 1-4 Loss Away

South Africa:
AFCON '23: 0-0 Draw in Quarterfinals (lost on penalties)

So that's 2 wins, 3 Draws, and 3 regulation losses in 8 games against World Cup sides+oddly underachieving Nigeria, GD of -4, largely due to the 4-1 loss to Cameroon they had away in WCQ back in the summer of '24....

So I really don't know. I was alarmed at how they struggled, probably nerves, to put a god awful Eswatini away 8 months ago to clinch their ticket to the WC (they finally got it done early in the 2nd half, then poured it on)....

Friendly Results:
In November they tied Iran and Egypt.

In March they tied Iceland, but got smacked 4-2 by Chile, but dig deeper and it was 2-1 in the 2nd half with Cape Verde dealing with a red card when Chile added 3 second half goals....no red card that feels like a draw or Cape Verde Win.

In May they beat a Serbia team that didn't even appear to be trying in that window, 3-0, and Bermuda I think 3-0 as well.....

All of it put together means to me they are probably better than the weakest sides in the tournament. People who have them slotted in at 45th, 46th, 47th, or 48th I just think are wrong. I think they're better than the worst teams in the tournament, but how good? I'd personally rank them ahead of Saudi Arabia, probably about 38th-40th for the tournament (most people who do numerical rankings have them 44th-46th), probably Iran too, not because I think they're necessarily better, more that everything that team has to worry about right now is going to really make it difficult to put it all together and win. It's possible. Iraq knocked out Bolivia in the middle of craziness (but I bet on them because they were better period)....but other than Iran purely based on the situational issues they have to cope with, there's probably 6-8 teams to me that are worse. Since I tend to think the Saudi's are one of those teams (they made the WC almost exclusively in my view because the AFC rigged qualifying for the Saudi's and Qatar to advance (how else to explain how they got to be home seeds despite finishing behind Iraq and UAE?), I have Cape Verde taking 3rd.

Tonight the Saudi's appear to be playing good defense, so who knows, maybe I'm wrong....We'll see...

 

The Cape Verde is a deadly counter attacking team.

The game where they beat Cameroon which all but sealed both nations fate, Cameroon dominated posession the entire match, couldnt break the Cape Verde block, and then after a turnover one player raced with the ball all by himself in on goal and scored.

Their game against Serbia they scored 3 counter attacking goals with very good efficient passing and movement.

From what ive seen of Saudi is they actually like posession, (unless playing a much superior opponent)

They are actually a decent passing side with good technical skills. They are not great at finishing and not very physical. The defence can also be very poor at times.

All this leads me to see this match as Saudi trying to control the tempo with their posession bit they will eventually get beaten by Cape Verde counter attacks.

A similar style of match will be Cape Verde against Uruguay, but the Uruguayans will be far more likely to win.

 

Just a looks at all those teams that we follow in CAF:
If South Africa still had the form they seemed to have '23-'24, I'd be in on them shocking the world as the group is like a watered down version of Group D. No Superpowers, and each pot side is weaker than the corresponding D side, but S. Africa has looked terrible the past year and so I expect nothing. Cape Verde, to me, quite a bit like DRC, is in a position where a 3rd place ticket is possible if they accomplish two goals: #1 beat the other weak perceived weak sister of the group and #2 keep the GD reasonable if/when they lose to the big dogs. With Cape Verde, Uruguay looked one way 2023-Summer '24, and another way Fall '24 to the present, like Dr Jeckle and Mr. Hyde, Spain is Spain, so just hope they are satisfied with 1-0 or 2-0. Then beat the Saudi's which, honestly, isn't a big ask to be a knockout round participant. The Saudi's were basically handed this WC ticket after absolutely sucking in WCQ and still nearly fumbled it away to Iraq. Seriously, they finished behind Jordan in the first stage, and then in freaking 3rd place in the final group stage a full 6 points behind Australia, and then inexplicably get to host the direct ticket round robin where they still can't beat Iraq and need to advance on Total Goals tiebreaker because they put 3 past Indonesia, in a tight 3-2 win, whereas Iraq only beat them 1-0.

It's probably the single least impressive path to a WC ticket of any team at the WC other than maybe New Zealand.

So take advantage of this reality and just smash those guys for the goal difference you need. They'll be playing in Houston in a dome for that game, so they won't have to worry about any brutal heat or humidity (the game in Miami against Uruguay will feature that, and honestly, I think Cape Verde is probably more used to adverse weather than Uruguay but I could be wrong). AI tells me that Cape Verde is definitely the more tropical, intense weather environment. Curious how many Cape Verde guys grew up there, and how many have loads of experience in those conditions? Otoh, it's not like Uruguay doesn't have to play tons of qualifiers in heat, humidity and altitude in Conmebol, so they won't be soft like the Euro's clearly will in environments like Miami, Kansas City, Northern Mexico and the American Northeast.

 

Uruguay's summers are hot and often humid, but far from Barranquilla, Manaus or Cuiabá.

 

Spain has to win this group.

 

My predictions:

Spain 7-0 Cape Verde

Saudi Arabia 0-1 Uruguay

 

Sorry I meant Cape Verde. I did that by accident because of the last World Cup with Spain’s opening match and I expected the same score.

 

Can they score 7 goals in the 2nd half ?

 

Very proud of my Cape Verde side that I followed all throughout Qualifying. What a heroic defensive effort. More proof that the 48 is fine. I don't think they can do this for 90, but they've done it for a full half. Beautiful effort. Fingers crossed they can keep the GD reasonable, and beat the Saudi's for a 3rd place ticket. That would be so so so cool.