It is up to Denmark, Tunisia, Peru / Australia / UAE to carry on the task of eliminating France and continuing the champion's curse. Fortunately, Denmark is the one who started it in 2002.

{CC}StealthBlue

United States41117 Posts

April 01 2022 17:37 GMT

#2049

Oh gods...

gTank

Austria2584 Posts

April 01 2022 18:16 GMT

#2050

I would laugh my ass off if england somehow managed to bomb out of this group!

nojok

France15845 Posts

April 01 2022 19:40 GMT

#2051

On April 02 2022 02:31 don_kyuhote wrote:
It is up to Denmark, Tunisia, Peru / Australia / UAE to carry on the task of eliminating France and continuing the champion's curse. Fortunately, Denmark is the one who started it in 2002.

On the other hand, Denmark was also in France's group in 1984 and 2000 euro wins but also 1998 and 2018 WC wins. The bright side for France, if the curse goes on, is that being eliminated in the group stage is still way better than 2010.

mahrgell

Germany3943 Posts

April 01 2022 20:37 GMT

#2052

To me it feels like a ton of groups have a really interesting battle for the 2nd spot. The top spot is usually pretty clear, and the gap is big enough that even a slip from the top dog should be acceptable.

So lets start guessing:
A) NL advances, the others are about equal (when considering a home advantage for qatar, otherwise they would be below the others)
B) England advances, and actually, I would believe that the conditions might help Iran, so this again is a tough race between the others. If Iran gets out of the England game with their morale intact, I would favor them for 2nd.
C) Argentina advances, Mexico and Poland will have a tough battle. No amount of sand can help Saudi Arabia.
D) France > Denmark > Tunisia > the other team, I don't expect any surprises
E) Spain and Germany advance. Maybe not without fault (because both have the tendency to forget how to score goals), but they will still make it.
F) Belgium easy. Croatia should be second, but then again, they are prone to random team morale collapses and Marocco might use their chance.
G) Imho the most exciting and strongest group. Brazil makes it, but I have absolutely no favorite between those other 3 teams.
H) This kinda looks like the weaker sibling to group G. Portugal is similarly alone as the group favorite, but weaker than Brazil. And the other 3 teams are similarly equal as the teams in group G, but again simply weaker overall. But from a pure predictability point of view probably the second most exciting group.

plasmidghost

Belgium16168 Posts

April 01 2022 21:12 GMT

#2053

I'm torn on who I want to qualify for Group B because like, England vs Scotland or Wales will be incredible, but Ukraine deserves a break

Mafe

Germany5966 Posts

April 01 2022 21:24 GMT

#2054

Netherlands won the draw imho. Good chance to win their group, and then if everything goes as expected their ro16 and ro8 opponents should be relatively (!) favorable. Nearly the same can be said for france, to a lesser extent. Not too happy with the german group, there's a real risk that we wont take the game against japan seriously, at least the public opinion surely will not.
There isnt a real "group of death", however the likely ro16 games created by groups E-G look considerably more spicy than those from groups A-D.

sharkie

Austria18481 Posts

April 01 2022 22:18 GMT

#2055

Group E is definitely a 3way battle!

Also anyone believing Denmark will advance o.o We are not in Europe

WombaT

Northern Ireland25875 Posts

April 01 2022 23:32 GMT

#2056

I’m sure some of you USMNT fans follow this guy already but he’s bloody excellent

twitter.com

evilfatsh1t

Australia8716 Posts

April 02 2022 05:12 GMT

#2057

as a korean group h is actually the best possible draw we could have got. it was hilarious also to see japan get the worst possible draw they could get lol

don_kyuhote

3006 Posts

April 02 2022 05:23 GMT

#2058

On April 02 2022 14:12 evilfatsh1t wrote:
as a korean group h is actually the best possible draw we could have got. it was hilarious also to see japan get the worst possible draw they could get lol

Not that it means anything, but 2010 was the only year Korea progressed out of group in a WC away from home. In that year, they faced 1 African team (Nigeria), 1 South American team (Argentina), and 1 European team who won the Euro 6 years prior (Greece). This time, it's again 1 African team (Ghana), 1 South American team (Uruguay), and 1 European team who won the Euro 6 years prior (Portugal). In 2010, they faced Messi. In 2022, they will face Ronaldo.

Liquid`Drone

Norway28699 Posts

April 02 2022 07:53 GMT

#2059

On April 02 2022 07:18 sharkie wrote:
Group E is definitely a 3way battle!

Also anyone believing Denmark will advance o.o We are not in Europe

Denmark has basically been a top 5 team in Europe the past 4 years. They don't look it if you go player by player, but if you look at how the actual team performance, they deserved the top 4 from EC last year, and they won 9 straight games of their WC qualification. I didn't watch their 2-4 defeat against Netherlands or their 3-0 win against Serbia, but unless they became a lot worse since last time I did watch them, I'd definitely consider them a favorite against both Tunisia and Peru (or Australia or UAE).