I disagree. Athletes are all about routine. Playing a major tournament in November / December that is long and grueling is so foreign to most of these teams and players. It will be interesting to see how they adjust. Also, these people are still humans with families and with social lives. Teams that make a deep run are away from families during the most wonderful time of the year. It may not be all that big of a variable but it does add up with all the other stupid little things this World Cup is forcing upon us.
The US is pretty unique with its holiday season beginning in late November. I don't think Europeans, for instance, even get in the holiday spirit until at most a week before Christmas.
There's still holiday parties that are scattered all over the month. Holiday Shopping and Festivals and traditions that are not just the week of Christmas but still. It is a small thing that adds up as I said with all the other small inconveniences this World Cup provides.
I'm no expert on Qatar, nor ever want to be, but I suspect high-end shopping malls & stores is one thing they would have plenty of. So the WAGs will be happy.
HA. Yes, Malls will probably be the highlight of this stupid thing but Christmas Holiday spirit? Probably not.
According to Mancini of Italy the World Cup will either be won by Italy, Spain or "another team". Kind of gutsy to say something like the way ahead of the tournament but hey, I do not expect him to say we have no shot either. Not sure Spain will be a favorite but if they can find a consistent #9 maybe they will.
Spain were the only team at this EUROs who took the game to Italy and came of all the closest to beat Italy. Don't forget Ansu Fati will come back. He's a great talent. He will give Spain some cutting edge and spark they missed. Spain will get only better from now. Laporte will adjust better to his new national team. Ramos could come back if he has a good season without major injuries. Imo Spain should be considered one of the major contenders to lift the trophy in Qatar. They don't even need a true number 9. France 2018 and Italy 2021 have shown that you can win also major tournaments without a reliable goalscorer. Giroud and Immobile weren't surely the reason why both teams ended up winning. It's enough to share the goals between some midfielders. As long as you are rock-solid at the back it can work. It would be intetesting to know what he means with "another team".
Yes, I just think Spain would be hands down favorite if they continue to improve and have a reliable striker up top. As for the "other team", it was probably just an off the cuff type of answer. He probably is just focused on his team and is not really focused on South American teams right now which is probably "other miscellaneous category".
All we know after the EUROs is that Italy, Spain and England reached the last four and already this alone makes them healthy contenders for Qatar next year. If one look back at previous European World Cup winners you'll notice that 7/9 were at least in the semi-finals of the EUROs prior the World Cup. Only exceptions were England in 66 who even failed to qualify for EURO 64 and Italy in 06 who exited in the group stage of EURO 04. Out of the other European powerhouses I could see only France closing the "gap" to Italy, Spain and England. Add one of Brazil or Argentina to the list and you have your top five favourites to lift the trophy. Germany, Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium are not in a good spot for different reasons. Difficult to see them catching up in only 16 months.
Unless crazy things happen in Asia like in 2002. Both Germany and Brazil looked pretty mediocre during qualifying in that cycle. Then they both woke up during the Tournament.
That was a mediocre Germany team that just got a nice draw all the way to the final. The 2 Euros right before and after that WC (and to some extent qualifying for the 2002 WC) showed their true level.
Which is basically my point. Trying to predict things now is pretty much pointless. Anything can happen.
The favourites for me have to be Germany. They just have such a talented and complete team with depth at every position. Plus they are extremely disciplined and play with structure, especially with Flick as manager, I just don’t see anyone beating them.
I’m sure that Tite is responsible for how Brazil plays but I also wonder that maybe the team just doesn’t have the same level of quality and creativity to be dominant like previous World Cup winning sides. Casemiro & Fabinho are their only proven and elite options in midfield. Fred stinks, Coutinho and Arthur have been ruined by poor coaching at club level & Paqueta while is promising, is hardly of the same quality as their golden generation players. In that Copa final, they weren’t able to generate any real chances or even buildup until Neymar got moved into midfield. I just feel this generation’s Brazil is weaker.
For me who lives in Germany I find this bold to think that Germany would be first favourites to win it all in Qatar. I see at least five teams who should be considered ahead of them. The ship has been sinking for almost four years now. Kroos bade farwell to the national team. Some others might follow. Flick will need to build the backbone of the team kind of from the scratch. I mean he's a good manager but I think Germany will only be able to unleash their potential in 2024 when they host the next EUROs. The World Cup comes a bit too early. The thing with the German squad is that it looks better on paper than it is actually. The new generation of players like Gnabry, Sané, Werner havent really gelled well with the established players so far. There are a lot of question marks around this team. Will Müller, Hummels and even Gündogan remain with the team or do they retire like Kroos? Who will be the new chef in midfield under Flick? Will Germany continue to play with a false nine or can Werner find his scoring touch again? You see it's far from an ideal situation only 16 months away of the tournament. In my view without any particular order Italy, Spain, England, France, Brazil and Argentina are all higher in the pecking order. Maybe things look different in November 2022 but this is at least how I see it for now.
Yeah maybe Germany is going through a transition period having underachieved in recent tournaments and getting a new manager, but I think the potential XI they could field would be strongest in the world in terms of both talent and completeness, maybe only France could challenge. I feel Kroos retiring was moreso due to the fact that his playstyle might not be be a great fit under Flick, he doesn’t seem to have the physical qualities to excel in a press system. For me, their defence and midfield is very strong. The only question is the attack, LW is not that consistent and Werner stinks as their only ST.
As I said, it could be like 2002 and everything could click for a team like Germany. Hard to fully judge right now but I would never count them out in a World Cup situation.
You could even argue that this current German team is more talented than 2002 overall, so if Flick can get them to click, they will be dangerous.
So I've decided to start a series in which I will be posting my projected 2022 rosters for all the contending teams. Obviously a lot can change over the next year and a half and you never know which young talents will come out of the blue, but I feel it is interesting nonetheless. I'll start with the South American contenders. For Argentina, we could roll with a 4-3-1-2 or 4-3-3. One of the weaknesses is that the wide players are a little bit old, but we have decent alternatives in Buendia and Dybala on the bench. Another thing is we don't have a DM who can retrieve the ball and help cover the center backs. Against teams like Germany, England, France and Belgium that could be a problem since they have the speed and physicality to run them over. We are lacking a prime Mascherano. What'd y'all think?
After four European World Cup winners you'd think that it's now CONMEBOL's turn to climb to the top again. But there's an issue not enough people have touched on so far. By the way never did the trophy stay in the same confederation for such a long time. CONMEBOL teams are clearly in a disadvantageous position. The Corona issue which lead to a very much delayed start of the Eliminatorias further complicated things for Brazil and Argentina. Both will be engaged in World Cup qualfying up to March 2022. UEFA meanwhile will run the third edition of their Nations League in June and September. The already very much shortened preparation time due to the World Cup being hold in mid-season was always going to be an issue. The clubs are obliged to release the players only on 14 November. The World Cup is scheduled to kick-off exactly one week later on 21 November. If your team isn't drawn in one of the first three four groups (A-D) then you could envisage to play maybe two build-up friendlies with your regular squad. Otherwise it will be almost impossibile to do that. As it stands that week prior to the tournament will be the only possible window for Brazil and Argentina to play some European heavyweights. In this entire cycle! Argentina have at least a friendly with Germany of 2019 under their belt. Both sides didn't field full-strengh sides though. Brazil haven't played a European powerhouse for a while now. It was ironically Belgium at the last World Cup. Brazil are historically an absolute force in world football. They will be always contenders for every World Cup they enter. But their recent record at World Cups against UEFA teams when they faced them in the kockout stage is quite poor. They never registered a win since ever they beat Germany in Yokohama at the 2002 World Cup final. They lost to France in 06, Netherlands in 10, Germany and Netherlands in 14 and Belgium in 18. It's starting to get a psychological burden. Hence every opportunity to play and even beat an European powerhouse beforehand is very much welcome for the players to build some confidence for an eventual clash in the tournament. Realistically I don't see Brazil and Argentina able to schedule more than one high profile friendly each. If Anything. Most teams don't tend to play big teams that late. High profile friendlies just ahead of a tournament are rather the exception. We'll see how much this will affect them both in their quest to bring the trophy back to South America.
One thing that might help their chances is that, based on what I witnessed during the Euros, there aren't many invincible-looking UEFA teams atm. France and Italy look really good of course, but after that everyone looks very beatable. That's not to say I would make Argentina/Brazil favorites against everyone else, but they would seem to have at least a 50/50 shot against everyone else.
Another thing that will help is that South American teams feed off the energy from the crowd like no other teams do. After all these months of not playing in front of fans and then finally having huge crowds cheer them on will be inspiring and very encouraging. The players listening to their thousands of fans singing their anthems will be appreciated like never before. You don't know how much you appreciate things until you lose it.
A good bet in terms of odds as bookies still underestimate Denmark. However don't expect them to go really all the way. It would be not World Cup-esque. World Cups are never won by darkhorses. For that the EUROs are a much better occasion. I had them as finalists in the EUROs which wasn't too far off.