Saturday, September 26, 2009

What is wrong with Portugal, Argentina and France?

One of the best and most waited competitions all over the planet is the World Cup that occurs in every four years. It´s something unique that brings hapiness to many football fans, who hope to see their country to be aclaimed the best football nation in Earth. The 2010 World Cup will take place at South Africa and will count with top nations discussing the world champion title. Next year we will be able to watch the best players of the world playing in the most important football event of the year. Torres, Xavi and Iniesta from Spain have confirmed their presence in South Africa, just like Luis Fabiano and Kaka from Brazil and Schneider and Robben from Netherlands. However, some world class players might have spend 2010 summer at home, watching the World Cup on tv. Im talking about three countries that are in a difficult situation and still have to struggle in order to qualify themselves.

Certainly that a World Cup without players like Lionel Messi and Aguero (Argentina) , Cristiano Ronaldo and Deco (Portugal) or Ribery and Henry (France) wouldn´t be exactly the World Cup we all expected, but it´s a fact that these fantastic players might not achieve the qualification.

When there are only two matches left to play, Argentina is in a complicated position in their group. They are 5th, the last place that give them an opportunity to reach a play-off. They will play against Peru (10/10/09) and Uruguay (14/10/09), two strong teams that will try making Los Albicelestes´s situation get worse.
In Europe, France is also in a play-off place access. They´re 2nd in a group led by Servia. However, France supporters may be optimistic once the next matches will be against Faroe and Austria, two relatively weak teams. Henry´s team just need to win one of this games to garantee the 2nd place or win both matches and pray for a Servia´s loss to get 1st in the group and directly qualify.
Among the three nations, Portugal is the one who is in the worst position. With a Denmark almost qualified, the 2nd place thats gives acess to play-off is disputed by Sweden and Portugal. A Selecção need to win against Hungary and Malta at home and expect a loss by the sweden team in order to keep their hopes of being in South Africa next summer.

The main question is this: Why are these fantastic teams with so many problems in qualifying? Have Maradonna, Carlos Queiróz and Raymond Domenech the fault? Are the coaches the main responsible for their teams poor performances?





One thing is for sure: If any of these nations fail the qualification, the team´s coach will be fired and they know that. There are no excuses in case of failling. All three teams have players with quality enough to be in the World Cup. Argentina and France have been World Champions before and Portugal have also achieved some good results in the last decade, like going through the Euro 2004 final and World Cup 2006 semi-final.

My guess is that France and even Argentina will get through play-offs and be in South Africa. Now about Portugal.... I have my doubts (but still believe they will be there).

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