2010 World Cup

2010 World Cup is just around the corner, and I'm sure people are already starting to take enough rest so they could follow each of the world cup match showed. This year looks like there are many favourite teams, and there are many interesting attraction to it as well.

No doubt Brazil and Spain is the hot favourite this year, but lets not discard teams like Germany, Netherland, England, Argentina and Italy as well. They are the traditional favourite team when world cup tournaments held and this year no different either. Except France, which I think is going downhill under the guidance of Raymond Domenech.

World No 1, Brazil and European Champ Spain are doing very well at the moment and it looks like it may take something extraordinary to stop them qualify for at least Semis, but I think Spain will just lack that little bit of luck and patient. It's true they won European Championship by their own strength, but in world cup, they do not have much time preparing for it and after such long and difficult season, I think their players are facing fatigue. When World Cup comes, they would be very tiring and will not be in their prime condition.

Brazil is the traditionally favourite, and no matter how bad their performance is, they still can put in some fantastic show. This year I think it would be little different first because it's play in a cold country, where South Africa is currently having winter time. Low temperature may affect Brazil's performance overall, coupling with high altitude!

I think the cold weather may suit England most as they are mostly played under cold condition, and they just need to adjust themselve to the high altitude condition, which will be perfect for them, and treated it as 2nd home ground. Another aspect is Fabio Capello! This is the coach England has sorely missed all these while, and in Fabio, I think they already have a champion coach. All they need to do is concentrate, and follow whatever instruction given.

For Argentina, they did not perform up to expectation during qualifying and under Diego Maradona, I think he's just a novice when comes to coaching, and hence they under perform. But with time getting on, the team gel well, and they are slowly performing up to what we expecting of them. Maybe they will spring some surprise this year, and who knows......

As for Germany, Netherland and Italy, I think it would be no obstruction for them to qualify till the quarters, but beyond that I think it will need some hardwork coupled with luck. Germany and Italy is the traditionally stable teams, and they would be solid performance from them, but they rely too much on those old guards, which I think will be a liability for them. Netherland always failed in major tournaments simply because there always have 2 camps within the Dutch team.

So for me I think this year's Semi Finalists would be England, Spain, Brazil and Argentina. Maybe quarter finalists would be the above 4 selected semi finalists, 3 traditional teams of Netherland, Italy and Germany, and the last one may be a surprise team from Africa. This is my prediction and what about yours?