GROUP E<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nPretend, for a moment, that you don’t know anything about the 2010 World Cup.\u00a0 Then, say I were to tell you a story that went something like this:\u00a0 In one of the group-stage games, a coach\u00a0 addresses his team at half-time,\u00a0with the score\u00a00-0.\u00a0 He criticizes one of his players for venturing out of position, and the player responds with a profanity-laced tirade that culminates in the player telling the coach to go f*%! himself, in front of the whole squad.\u00a0 The coach removes said player from the game, and afterwards, the nation’s FA announces that they will be punishing him.<\/p>\n
How do his teammates respond?\u00a0 Well, they go on strike, of course, and refuse to practice the next day.\u00a0 Predictably, there is a huge media storm at home, the team’s on-field performace suffers, and they fail to get out of their group.\u00a0 The whole affair is viewed as a great national embarrassment.<\/p>\n
Now, if I were to ask you to guess which country’s 2010 World Cup experience I’ve just described, you’d guess France, wouldn’t you?\u00a0 Sometimes, the world just plays to our stereotypes, I suppose.<\/p>\n
Given the chaos of their last World Cup adventure, one might wonder why anyone would pick\u00a0France to win Group E this time around.\u00a0 I could talk about the new coach, the new players, everyone’s\u00a0fervent desire to atone for 2010… but none of that means as much as the simple fact that\u00a0they drew pretty much the easiest possible opposition here.<\/p>\n
Honduras seems to have regained their optimism after their\u00a00-0 draw with England, but recent defeats to Turkey (2-0) and Israel (4-2) may be more indicative of their level.\u00a0 Still, they\u00a0played quite well in\u00a0CONCACAF qualifying, and they’re used to playing in the heat.\u00a0 They will look to play conservatively and counter-attack once their opponents have exhausted themselves.<\/p>\n
Ecuador have some quality players in the likes of Felipe Caicedo, Enner Valencia,\u00a0Antonio Valencia\u00a0and Michael Arroyo, but they’ve struggled to remain consistent, and their defense is widely seen as shaky.\u00a0 They will attack with gusto, but their approach may prove naive in this setting.\u00a0 I suspect that the Europeans\u00a0will be more troubled by Honduras’ defensive set-up.<\/p>\n
Switzerland are France’s most likely challengers.\u00a0 They looked very good in UEFA qualifying, winning their group by seven points.\u00a0 One of their brightest stars, Xherdan Shaqiri, made a big-time move to Bayern Munich in 2012, but that led to him spending most of last season on the bench behind Arjen Robben.\u00a0 Lack of games is always a concern, but that shouldn’t hold the Swiss back here.\u00a0 They are a solid, well-organized team and they should get out of this group.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, though, France has a long list of big names in their squad – Lloris, Koscielny, Sagna, Evra, Pogba, Cabaye, Giroud, Remy… All experienced players from big clubs that should be able to get the job done in Group E (assuming, of course, they don’t decide to faire la gr\u00e8ve <\/em>this time around).<\/p>\nGroup E Winner:\u00a0 France
\nGroup E Runner-Up:\u00a0 Switzerland<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
GROUP F<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nFor the last several years, Lionel Messi has been one side of a two-way debate over the identity of the world’s best player.\u00a0 This past season, the balance of\u00a0opinion seems to have tipped in Christiano Ronaldo’s favor, but let’s all take a deep breath and remember that Messi still scored 41 goals in 46 appearances in all competitions with Barcalona this season.\u00a0 Standards\u00a0have gotten pretty\u00a0high when people see that kind of production as an “off” year.<\/p>\n
Of course, it was Messi himself who set those standards by winning everything that there is to win with his club, and then winning it again.\u00a0 His resume glitters with accomplishments, but there is one mountain he hasn’t yet managed to climb:\u00a0 he’s never really shone on the World Cup stage.\u00a0 2014 is his chance to do it in style on his home continent.<\/p>\n
He’ll\u00a0have plenty of help, as Argentina\u00a0will field one of the most impressive squads in the tournament.\u00a0 Higuain, Lavezzi, Mascherano, Di Maria, Zabaleta… everywhere you look, you find a star player coming off a good season at a big club.\u00a0 It’s hard not to feel optimistic about their chances in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Argentina’s cause is bolstered further by the fact that they got a pretty favorable draw here.\u00a0 Iran’s\u00a0best player toils in the second tier of English football, and the majority of his compatriots have never tested themselves outside of their own domestic league.\u00a0 The gulf in class and experience will surely be too wide for them to overcome;\u00a0the more realistic aim will be to avoid humiliation in defeat.<\/p>\n
Nigeria is a step up from Iran, but it’s hard to see them\u00a0worrying\u00a0Argentina, either.\u00a0 Premier League fans will recognize Victor Moses, Peter Odemwingie and\u00a0Shola Ameobi – decent players all, but not exactly the type of guys that you would expect to shine in this competition.\u00a0 Emmanuel Emenike and Uche Nwofor are decent attacking options as well, but most of the pre-tournament analysis that I’ve\u00a0seen has focused on John Obi Mikel.\u00a0\u00a0That’s not a\u00a0good\u00a0thing.\u00a0 Based on what I’ve seen from him at Chelsea,\u00a0it’s pretty clear that any team\u00a0that needs John Obi Mikel to be their main man is in trouble.<\/p>\n
That leaves Bosnia-Herzegovina as the last team with a chance to spoil Argentina’s party, and they’re an interesting one.\u00a0 This is their first appearance at the World Cup, so there is a sense that they’re a bit of a wild card; they’ll certainly be playing with a ton of national pride (the benefits of which may be partially\u00a0negated by the nerves that come with it).\u00a0 I happened to watch their friendly last week against Mexico, and I thought they looked very capable.\u00a0 I also know that they had a very strong qualification campaign, and that they have a star striker in Edin Dzeko.\u00a0 Does all of this add up to a credible challenge to Argentina’s dominance?\u00a0 Probably not, but it should be enough to get them out of one of the tournament’s weaker groups and into the Round of 16.<\/p>\n
Group F Winner:\u00a0 Argentina
\nGroup F Runner-Up:\u00a0 Bosina-Herzegovina<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Only one day left! On to Groups E and F! GROUP E Pretend, for a moment, that you don’t know anything about the 2010 World Cup. Then, say I were to tell you a story that went something like this: In one of the group-stage games, a coach addresses his team at half-time, with the score 0-0. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-cup-2014"],"yoast_head":"\n
World Cup Preview - Groups E and F - Bob Waldner<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"World Cup Preview - Groups E and F - Bob Waldner\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Only one day left! On to Groups E and F! GROUP E Pretend, for a moment, that you don’t know anything about the 2010 World Cup. Then, say I were to tell you a story that went something like this: In one of the group-stage games, a coach addresses his team at half-time, with the score 0-0. […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Bob Waldner\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-11T19:32:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-06-11T19:34:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"rjwaldner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"rjwaldner\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202\",\"name\":\"World Cup Preview - Groups E and F - Bob Waldner\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-06-11T19:32:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-06-11T19:34:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#\/schema\/person\/59b9730d45fdb7634b83d08ca746366a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"World Cup Preview – Groups E and F\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/\",\"name\":\"Bob Waldner\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#\/schema\/person\/59b9730d45fdb7634b83d08ca746366a\",\"name\":\"rjwaldner\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e31fd206b04136bddc4411a59fdbca4cb749c30d116864e0d8eb303fa8063ba7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e31fd206b04136bddc4411a59fdbca4cb749c30d116864e0d8eb303fa8063ba7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"rjwaldner\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"World Cup Preview - Groups E and F - Bob Waldner","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"World Cup Preview - Groups E and F - Bob Waldner","og_description":"Only one day left! On to Groups E and F! GROUP E Pretend, for a moment, that you don’t know anything about the 2010 World Cup. Then, say I were to tell you a story that went something like this: In one of the group-stage games, a coach addresses his team at half-time, with the score 0-0. […]","og_url":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202","og_site_name":"Bob Waldner","article_published_time":"2014-06-11T19:32:21+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-06-11T19:34:39+00:00","author":"rjwaldner","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"rjwaldner","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202","url":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202","name":"World Cup Preview - Groups E and F - Bob Waldner","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-06-11T19:32:21+00:00","dateModified":"2014-06-11T19:34:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#\/schema\/person\/59b9730d45fdb7634b83d08ca746366a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?p=202#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"World Cup Preview – Groups E and F"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/","name":"Bob Waldner","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#\/schema\/person\/59b9730d45fdb7634b83d08ca746366a","name":"rjwaldner","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e31fd206b04136bddc4411a59fdbca4cb749c30d116864e0d8eb303fa8063ba7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e31fd206b04136bddc4411a59fdbca4cb749c30d116864e0d8eb303fa8063ba7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"rjwaldner"},"url":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/?author=1"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mwfo-3g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205,"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobwaldnerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}