The World Cup group draw is a good opportunity to change the culture and look at the quality of the teams without paying attention only to tradition. Germany, in the second pot, is scary.
On the other hand, the secondary classification is explained by the elimination in the group stage of the 2018 World Cup, for leading Spain 6-1, losing North Macedonia and being eliminated from the Euro in the round of 16.
Counterpoint is Switzerland, which disqualified Italy, qualified to the quarterfinals in Eurocup, a tournament in which they took France and lost Spain, on penalties. By tradition, it is much worse to face the Germans than the Swiss. In practice, both pose risk.
What unbalances the draw is the need to include the hosts as seeds. The best way to rebalance would be to place ninth in the rankings in the Qatar group. Even so, Germany would not be considered, because its current ranking is worse than that of the Netherlands and Denmark.
Don’t get lost in the names. Serbia beat Portugal in Lisbon and have an attacking duo formed by Tadic, from Ajax, and Vlahovic, the most expensive signing of the European winter, 70 million euros paid by Juventus to Fiorentina. The Netherlands once again had Louis Van Gaal as coach. In nine games, he scored 28 goals, facing opponents such as Germany and Denmark.
Even Mexico, without the strength to unseat Canada from the top position of Concacaf, eliminated Germany in the group stage of the last World Cup. The Worlds has eight title contenders and countless possibilities for underdogs. France, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, Argentina, Spain, Holland and Portugal. Any one of these can lift the cup.
Of the last five champions, four were disqualified in the initial phase. France fell in 2002 to Senegal, Italy was eliminated with defeat to Slovakia, Spain lost the berth to Chile and Germany came home early after being defeated by South Korea, a result that helped to classify Mexicans and Swedes. .
Brazil is stronger than it looked a year ago. It won three consecutive victories by 4 to 0, over Paraguay, Chile and Bolivia. None of the three goes to the Cup. It’s only worrying to have faced one European rival in this four-year cycle – it won the Czech Republic in 2019.
It is not a Brazilian exclusivity. Argentina celebrates the longest unbeaten streak in its history, with 20 wins, 11 draws and a single clash against European, equal with Germany, three years ago.
It seems better to run away from the classics and not have Germany or Holland, to increase the prospect of the selection evolving during the campaign. But forget the idea that there will be an easy opponent.
It does not have.
Croatia were runners-up and Belgium finished third in the most recent World Cup, which had Uruguay in fifth, Brazil in sixth and Argentina in 16th place.
There has never been so much knowledge of football spread across so many countries. Possible lanterns could be Qatar, debutant, as well as Canada, Iran and Tunisia, without ever advancing to the knockout stages. All the other 25 classified have already been at least in the round of 16.
There will be seven champions, two runners-up, three third-placed teams, two quarters, seven countries that reached the quarter-finals and four participants in the round of 16.
Of the refished ones, Costa Rica, Peru and Ukraine have already reached the quarterfinals and Australia played in the eighth in 2006. In 2014, there were seven rookies in the playoffs. Four years ago, six. This will be the most disputed Cup of all.
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