Germany to Win the World Cup...?? : World Cup Russia 2018

Germany to Win the World Cup...?? : World Cup Russia 2018

In my last Blog, I forecast that the following 8 teams would be successful in making it through to the final 32 of the World Cup qualifying process: -

Italy / Croatia / Denmark / Ivory Coast / Peru / Northern Ireland / Australia / Senegal / Tunisia

Well, I got 5 out of the 8 right, so not too bad. Almost no one was expecting Italy to be defeated by Sweden and miss out on their first World Cup Finals since 1958, but they did..! Switzerland managed to bully their way past Northern Ireland, and Ivory Coast conspired to loose out in their qualifying group to Morocco.

So there you have it, the final 32 teams for next year’s World Cup Finals.

The Final Draw for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia is happening in Moscow on Friday 1 December, and will start at 18:00 local time. It is live on TV here in New Zealand at 4am on Saturday, and I will set my alarm to get up and see it.

The draw itself is generally a very convoluted and complex thing, and I have found a YouTube video to explain it: https://youtu.be/jDkn83FwioA

Obviously being a geek, I have conducted my own unofficial draw to see if I can guess which matches we will be seeing in the opening group games, and come up with the following:

M4 Costa Rica v Saudi Arabia

M17 Russia v Sweden

M25 France v Iceland

M39 Panama v Belgium

As I am a bit of a nerd, I have also done a complete mock-up of the whole of the Tournament based upon who I think will progress through the group stages to identify who we might see in the succeeding games:

M51 Brazil v Sweden

M56 Poland v Switzerland

M62 Belgium v Portugal

M64 Germany v Belgium

So I am forecasting that it will be a Germany v Belgium final, with Germany going on to lift the World Cup in 2018…!! 

I wish I could predict England for the World Cup......, but that would be madness...

The end of Qualifying. Who will qualify..? : World Cup 2018 Russia

The end of Qualifying. Who will qualify..? : World Cup 2018 Russia

Well, enough about tickets and travel arrangements, it’s time to look at the World Cup Qualifiers, and who is going to make it into the last 32 teams to play in Russia. So far the following teams have qualified :

Russia / Brazil / Germany / Spain / France / Portugal / Argentina / Mexico / Belgium / South Korea / England  / Nigeria / Columbia / Japan / Costa Rica / Poland / Egypt / Iceland / Iran / Saudi Arabia / Serbia / Panama

From my perspective, the most significant team that is not on that list is the USA, who somehow manage to contrive to throw away their chance to reach the finals with some incredibly poor results in their last few game, not helped by results elsewhere. After having done so well in Brazil in 2014, it feels like a real backward step for US football, and I genuinely hope that they can turn things around over the next few years and make a better fist of it for 2022.

There are however still 9 places left to be taken for next year’s finals, and over the coming weekend the last round of qualifying and knock out games will take place. As is tradition, I am going to try and guess which teams are going to make it through to the finals. The African Conference are playing their last qualifying games to sort out who goes through, and I am going to choose Senegal, Tunisia & the Ivory Coast.

In Europe, there are 4 play-off games taking place, and I have highlighted who I think will go through over two legs below:-

Croatia v Greece / Northern Ireland v Switzerland / Sweden v Italy / Denmark v Rep of Ireland

The 5^th place team in Central American Conference, Honduras, are playing off against runners-up in the Asian qualifying, Australia, and I choose Australia to win that one. This is based on nothing more than me holding Honduras accountable for knocking the USA out of next year’s tournament with their ridiculous late goal in qualifying.

Last but not least is my adopted home country New Zealand, (winners of the somewhat farcical Oceania qualifying group), are playing Peru, who finished 5^th in the South American Conference. If my heart ruled my head, which it is apt to do on occasion, I would go for New Zealand, but if I really thought they stood a chance, I would have brought tickets to the play-off game and thrown my support behind them. But alas not…. So unfortunately I am choosing Peru to go through.

So there you have it…. I am expecting Italy / Croatia / Denmark / Ivory Coast / Peru / Northern Ireland / Australia / Senegal / Tunisia go through after this round of play-off games…

How will I do….?