Group D is the group of England, Uruguay, Italy and Costa Rica. England has three games to qualify and will play a difficult squad of Uruguay, face the experience of the Italians while a talented Costa Rica team is rising in CONCACAF.
Luis Suarez and Edison Cavani will be very hard to stop and play at their best with their respective club Liverpool and PSG as well as Cristian Rodriguez for Atletico Madrid. Uruguay has also shown and played a better football since the Confederations Cup where they lost in the semifinals against Brazil and during the qualifying round of the World Cup 2014.
Italy is known for experience symbolized by goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and midfielder Andrea Pirlo. Both future legends will be accompanied by a strong squad featuring AC Milan Mario Balotelli on top and a strong midfielder with Rossi and players in the best teams of Serie A and PSG with Verratti and Motta.
Finally Costa Rica will feature 11 players from European leagues and has talent to show the World playing against world’s best.
England coach Roy Hogdson on GK Hart
“When we went to the Euros in 2012 he was ‘the best goalkeeper in the world’, then a year later he couldn’t get into the Manchester City team and people were saying the guy is hopeless.
“I think he’s a very good goalkeeper. He’s definitely one of the best there is and we’re delighted to have him. But I’m going to shy away from giving him ‘you’re the best in the world.’
“He’s had a very good season and he’s going into the World Cup full of confidence. Hopefully we can profit from that.”
On his opinion… We’re very excited in the right way. We bear quite a large responsibility, but I think the mood in the country is very good. There’s a lot of support for us, and a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of hope going into it. People realise this is the sort of stuff of which dreams are made and that’s a good platform to be going in at. And of course that’s something good for the team itself. We find it exciting.
