The greatest fights in the universe are left with just less than a month’s time to begin. It is the FIFA World Cup 2014 which is going to be held in Brazil, the place of Samba dance, from 12 June. As usual it will be the fights of the heavy weights and will feature 32 best football playing nations in the world with teams like Brazil, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium etc.
Since Brazil has won the bid to host the world cup, the South American teams have a reason to rejoice, as all the 5 world cups held in South America have been won only by a South American country. This can be especially for Scolari-led Brazil who can explore the home conditions and is in tremendous form for which they had won the Confederations Cup exactly a year ago, with Neymar playing a key role in the victory. Opinions are varied on who will lift the world’s most recognized trophy on July 13. While host nation Brazil is the favorite among most bookies, arguments can be made for numerous countries to emerge victorious. Needless to say this year’s World cup is much awaited and has tremendous combination of world’s best players.
FIFA World Cup is highly unpredictable. All the teams who have qualified for the tournament will try to inscribe the name of their nation on the cup. It is not a one horse race and thus every group is tough and difficult with fierce level of competitiveness, hence making it very difficult to the find out the ‘Group of Death’.
Out of all the 8 groups, group D and group G look the most difficult ones. But Group G would be called the ‘Group of Death’ in this year’s World cup. Germany, Portugal, Ghana and the United States were paired together by the draw, creating a group where no side is completely safe, although the European sides will be favored to advance. But no one can rule out the fact that Ghana is the power house of African football and U.S.A has already shown what they are capable of during the qualifiers.
| WORLD CUP GROUP G | |
| NATIONAL TEAM | FIFA RANKING |
| GERMANY | 2 |
| PORTUGAL | 5 |
| GHANA | 24 |
| UNITED STATES | 14 |
For Germany, viewed as one of the tournament’s top contenders with the likes of Neuer, Lahm, Ozil, Podolski and also klose, who is just one goal short of Brazilian legend Ronaldo’s record of 15 goals in the world cups, the tough draw isn’t enough to change that elite status. The Germans have in-form defenders at their disposal, and when at their best, they are virtually unstoppable. But getting through the group stage and making a way to the knock-out phase is not a lock because the road to the championship is far more difficult than it is expected.
For Portugal to succeed in Brazil, Ronaldo is going to need some help from players like Almeida, Nani and Moutinho. Their troubles in the World Cup qualifiers have shown that they will need a lot more than an on-song Cristiano Ronaldo if they are to mount a serious challenge in Brazil. Although they can beat any team on their day, Portugal is prone to unexplained lapses and can be chronically wasteful in attack. But given how Ronaldo single handedly led Portugal out of the miseries and took them forward specially during the last games of the qualifiers to the group stage, they could now be high on motivation.
As it has been already said that U.S.A had put up some laudable performances in their qualifiers, no one can rule out their possibilities too. As for Tim Howard, the more that man is getting old the better has been his form. Led by Klinsmann who has previously led the German team as well as Bayern Munich and with star players like Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley and Altidore, USA isn’t going to be an easy out.
Last but not the least, though Ghana is ranked the lowest of the four teams, their success record in the recent world cups should be kept in mind by the other three teams. They have advanced to the knock-out phase both in 2006 and 2010. In 2010 they have played the quarterfinals, though losing to Uruguay. They have tested players like Kevin-Prince Boateng, Michael Essien and Asamoah Gyan in their ranks and will harbor ambitions of causing an upset of similar proportions to their journey into the quarter-finals in South Africa four years ago.
Though it’s too early to predict anything, it’s that all round competitiveness that makes Group G the toughest of all. Whatsoever, it’s still hard to say which two teams will make through, but one can certainly guarantee that this group G would characterize plenty of drama in it.
