2018 FIFA World Cup kick-off is only a few days away
An European nation has won the last three FIFA World Cups [2006 Italy, 2010 Spain and 2014 Germany]. The last non-European nation was in 2002, Brazil against Germany in the Final.
This year again a few European nations are title favorites or contenders whereas Brazil seem the only team extra Europe to be able to win the World Cup this summer in Moscow. The World cup betting odds will be very interesting and it’s time to be lucky!
Germany
The 2014 World Champions have concluded their World Cup preparation with one win against modest Saudi Arabia 2-1 and one defeat in Austria 2-1. The team also lost to Brazil 1-0 back in March. Despite the recent woes, coach Joachim Löw is not worried as he expressed following the last friendly match:
“We’ll continue to improve and, when the tournament starts, we’ll be ready. I believe we started well. Our movement was good in the first half. In the second half, we rested on our laurels a bit.
We missed too many chances and gave too many away. At the end, we even needed a bit of luck. Next week, we’ll out in a more dynamic and vibrant performance. We have to pick ourselves up and prepare for the tournament. We have a lot of potential and want to show it in Russia.”
Spain tied with Switzerland 1-1 and beat Tunisia 1-0 in the last two friendlies. Spain have a big test to inaugurate their World Cup campaign against the Euro 2016 champions Portugal. Coach Lopetegui and his men are ready for the challenge:
“We are going to see a World Cup with little differences on the scoreboard. In the second half we overcame the difficulties against a team which drew with Portugal only a week ago.
The best is the high tempo which forced Tunisia to increase their intensity. The outlook is positive, we are aware of the difficulties we saw today, which we’ll find in other matches.
We’ve had similar minutes. Furthermore, in addition to the response during the game, we want all the players to take part to get in the best shape possible. Both Diego Costa and Iago Aspas delivered a great solution when we put a line of three.”
We understood the match required that. Playing with two forwards is the option we manage most, we’ve done it before.”
France
France beat Republic of Ireland 2-0 and Italy 3-1 before conceding a draw 1-1 against a new look USMNT team. Like the others European rivals, the friendlies were a good test to prepare this talented French squad for a deep run.
Coach Deschamps who won the World Cup in 1998 can hope for the best with this squad. In a favorable group for Les Bleus everything is possible for the France to reach the second week of July…
England
England have been looking to renew with its past glory since the 1966 victory. they defeated all their opponents in the friendlies 2-1 vs. Nigeria and 2-0 vs Costa Rica. Coach Southgate is very optimistic the team can go far in the tournament.
“We’ve got great competition for places right the way through the team, I think we saw that tonight. The team, the patterns of play, the professionalism, the approach to both matches have carried things out really well.
We could stand here and go through one to eleven, if it’s complicated the decision it’s in a good way – we know the decisions we need to make, we need options.
We seem to have got through the two games without any serious injuries and we’ve got to have players that can come in and change matches when we’re out there and chase games and be able to shut games down.
I’m really pleased with the three weeks of preparation, we’ve given ourselves a really good platform.”
Belgium
The outsider by definition with an extremely talented generation of players. They will be one of the team to watch after they did well in 2014 losing to Argentina in the quarters.
Belgium beat Egypt sans Salah 3-0 and drew against Portugal 0-0. They are armed to make noise in the tournament and have players in the best European clubs. Belgium and England will face to likely determine the group winner.
