I think that it's pretty obvious that Brazil will win Group F. Without meaning to disparage any of the other teams in the group, this is the second World Cup in a row that Brazil has been placed in a group that will all but assure them of qualifying for the next round. Last time it was Turkey, Costa Rica and China. This time it's Australia, Croatia and Japan.
So, the real challenge here is finding out who is joining Brazil in this group into the next round. Japan has a pretty good midfield, but their attack doesn't impress me and I don't think their defenders match up well against the attackers from the other teams in Group F. I can't see their defenders match up well against John Aloisi, Mark Viduka, Adriano, Ronaldo, Kaká, Ivan Klasnic or Dado Prso.
So the choice is then narrowed down to Croatia or Australia (although with the number of players on Australia's team of Croatian ancestry, it's somewhat hard to tell who's Croatian and who's Australian). The two teams recent form is worth looking at. Croatia has played four of its five recent games against other World Cup squads. They beat Argentina 3-2 in the 92nd minute. They tied Iran on a penalty kick in the 90th minute. They lost to Poland 1-0 and they lost to Spain 2-1, their one goal coming from an own goal.
Australia has played three recent warm-up games with only one against a World Cup team in which they tied the Netherlands 1-1 and played for nearly thirty minutes with a man down - in the Netherlands. The key difference here is the number of goals given up: Australia gave up 2 goals, one of which was an own goal. Croatia gave up 7 goals. In addition, I think Guus Hiddink's coaching record speaks for itself. So, while going out on a limb somewhat, I think Australia will be the number 2 team on goal difference, but match Croatia on points.
I really don't know all the other teams besides Brazil on this group, but based on past performance I would beat on Japan to get the 2nd place here.
Posted by: Alves | June 08, 2006 at 09:36 PM