FIFA Fever: World Cup 2014 Preview

With the excit­ing end of this year’s soc­cer leagues around the globe, the foot­ball world is all set to have an exhil­a­rat­ing World Cup 2014. After the fair­ly unevent­ful and not-so-excit­ing World Cup of 2010 that took place in South Africa, the enthu­si­asm for inter­na­tion­al foot­ball con­tin­ued to dimin­ish in the world and notably in Europe, the shift of foot­ball fanati­cism moved to the league foot­ball.

How­ev­er, FIFA World Cup 2014 promis­es to be a treat and the sport in gen­er­al can ben­e­fit a lot from a tremen­dous World Cup this sum­mer. There are numer­ous rea­sons that make this com­pe­ti­tion irre­sistible; some of them are as fol­lows.

• Strong squads of all major teams
All the major nations con­tend­ing for the title are star stud­ded and have super­stars play­ing for them for almost all posi­tions. The only excep­tion here is that of the Nether­lands as Arjen Robben, Van Per­sie, and to some extent Wes­ley Snei­jder remain the only high pro­file play­ers for them.

• More teams threat­en­ing for the lat­ter stages
Spain, Ger­many and Brazil are amongst the pri­ma­ry title con­tenders, but there are a lot of teams which have the knack to go into the quar­ter and semi-finals of the tour­na­ment. Teams like Bel­gium, Uruguay, Argenti­na, Croa­t­ia and Chile are pos­ing a real threat.

• Most expen­sive FIFA World Cup in his­to­ry
World Cup this sum­mer has bro­ken all pre­vi­ous records and is known to be the most expen­sive world cup of foot­ball till date. The spon­sors, media cov­er­age, and over­all brand­ing of the tour­na­ment has been extreme­ly big. The prize mon­ey itself is the stag­ger­ing $276 mil­lion that is the high­est amount so far to be paid to the win­ning team.

• Fan­tas­tic Draws in Group Stages
FIFA World Cup 2014 is all set to have some huge match­es right from the very begin­ning. Ties like Spain vs Nether­lands, Eng­land vs Italy and Brazil vs Croa­t­ia at the very start of the tour­na­ment make it thrilling from the start.

Fol­low­ing is the pre­view of the open­ing mouth-water­ing fix­ture of the World Cup 2014:

Brazil vs Croa­t­ia

Brazil’s recent form has been extra­or­di­nary ever since their coach Felipe Sco­lari has rejoined. He has lost just twice in his 20 games and scored 57 goals while con­ced­ing just 15. The sta­tis­tics and tac­tics of the ex-Chelsea coach have been bril­liant for Brazil. He might not have the same attack­ing depth as he had in 2002 with Rival­do, Ronal­do and Ronald­in­ho, but he still has a mas­sive squad with the likes of Ney­mar, Hulk, Oscar and Fred in the attack­ing part of the team. As far as the defense is con­cerned, Brazil boasts one of the best defens­es in the world with Thi­a­go Sil­va, who is wide­ly regard­ed as the best defend­er in the world play­ing at the heart of their defense pair­ing with David Luiz who has recent­ly accept­ed a sen­sa­tion­al move to PSG from Chelsea for 50 mil­lion pounds. More­over, their full backs being Cham­pi­ons League win­ner Marce­lo and Barcelona’s Dani Alves give them ample space to attack on the flanks and also keep their defense line water­proof.

One of the major tasks for the Brazil­ian coach would be to deal with the play­ers who have not played well for their respec­tive league clubs. Play­ers such as Paulin­ho and Julio Cesar hasn’t been per­form­ing well late­ly, but are expect­ed to start for their nation. The goal­keep­ing slot han­dled by Julio Cesar would be a big ques­tion and it would remain to see whether Cesar still has it in him to per­form at the top lev­el. Louis Gus­ta­vo may lose his start­ing berth to the fan­tas­tic per­form­ing Fer­nand­in­ho, while Ney­mar would once again be expect­ed to be the sav­ior of Brazil.

Leav­ing aside the sig­nif­i­cance of Hulk, Ney­mar and Fred for the team, it is one indi­vid­ual who has to be at his best if Brazil needs to go to the finals and that is Oscar. The Chelsea man start­ed their 2013/2014 cam­paign with a blast and end­ed up replac­ing Juan Mata, who had been win­ning con­sec­u­tive play­er of the year awards for Chelsea. Not only did he replace Juan’s Mata, but his out­stand­ing per­for­mances also made Chelsea sell Juan Mata to their title rivals Man­ches­ter Unit­ed. How­ev­er, in the lat­ter peri­od of the league, Oscar start­ed to per­form awful­ly and was hence­forth tak­en out of the start­ing 11. It will remain to see whether the tal­ent­ed young Brazil­ian would be able to grasp his form back, but in case he gets back to his play­mak­ing skills, he shall be an absolute asset for the team.

Croa­t­ia on the oth­er hand has an equal­ly pop­u­lar and suc­cess­ful coach in Robert Kovac. The squad of Croa­t­ia is extreme­ly tal­ent­ed and they are hop­ing to sur­pass their achieve­ments in 1998 finals where they fin­ished third. Croa­t­ia has arguably the best three play­mak­ers in a sin­gle team with Luka Mod­ric, Mateo Kovacic and Barcelona’s tar­get Ivan Rakitic all play­ing the best foot­ball of their careers. It will be extreme­ly inter­est­ing to see whether the three of them will be able to play in a sin­gle team. Mateo Kovacic can be expect­ed to play at the left wing cour­tesy of his skill­ful drib­bling skills while Mod­ric and Rakitic would be pulling the strings from the mid­field. The biggest blow for Croa­t­ia, how­ev­er, is the sus­pen­sion of Mario Mandzu­kic. The Bay­ern Munich star is their biggest weapon in attack and he will miss their first impor­tant match against Brazil. Nev­er­the­less, Ivi­ca Olic will most like­ly take his place and he is still a good enough option to lead the attack for Croa­t­ia.

Pre­dic­tion: Tech­ni­cal­ly, Brazil has a very potent attack and an even sol­id defense, but they lack some cre­ativ­i­ty in the mid­field as Oscar and Paulin­ho has not been at their best. On the con­trary, Croa­t­ia has a remark­able mid­field and a decent attack, so the con­test between the two of them would be a treat to watch.
How­ev­er, with the home advan­tage and a bet­ter over­all squad, we expect Brazil to win this match with a 2–1 score­line.
Play­ers to Watch: Ney­mar and Luka Mod­ric

Spain vs Nether­land
Spain enters this world cup as clear cut most favorite with their unbeat­able recent per­for­mances. Vin­cente Del Bosque’s men will def­i­nite­ly be look­ing to add a fourth con­sec­u­tive pres­ti­gious tro­phy in their cab­i­net. Spain’s per­for­mances in the last world cup and Euro cup have deserved­ly won them all the suc­cess, how­ev­er their recent thrash­ing in Brazil last sum­mer has caused some con­cerns for Del Bosque and he may be look­ing to have a new for­ma­tion of his team.

While it could be fool­ish to change the for­ma­tion of an incred­i­bly suc­cess­ful team, but the change in tac­tics could bring out a dif­fer­ent brand of foot­ball that could be sur­pris­ing for the oppo­nents. We’ve seen in the past Vin­cente Del Bosque play­ing a team with­out any strik­er and with their main attack­ing man Diego Cos­ta fight­ing through an injury, it would be inter­est­ing to see how Spain copes with their attack­ing options. Apart from Cos­ta, Fer­nan­do Tor­res and David Vil­la are the oth­er avail­able options, but with the for­mer hav­ing a dis­ap­point­ing sea­son with Chelsea, and the lat­ter being over­shad­owed by Diego Cos­ta in Ath­leti­co Madrid, Spain is not like­ly to depend on these two a lot.

As far as the Span­ish mid­field is con­cerned, it is so much enriched with tal­ent that even the posi­tions of Andres Ini­es­ta, Xavi and David Sil­va are not con­firmed. How­ev­er, it is expect­ed that Bus­quets and Alon­so could start in the cen­tral mid­field with the lat­ter being their star man in the piv­ot. Cesc Far­bre­gas could well again be their key play­mak­er as the attack­ing mid­field­er would be poised to prove him­self after los­ing his place in Barcelona and also miss­ing a ridicu­lous penal­ty against El Sal­vador in the World Cup warm-up match­es.

In the defense sec­tion, Ser­gio Ramos would be all con­fi­dent to lead the Spain’s defense after his hero­ic per­for­mances in win­ning the Cham­pi­ons League for Real Madrid. Ramos would most like­ly start in the cen­tral defense instead of full back with Pique as the retire­ment of Puy­ol has left a vacant gap in their defense. More­over, Juafran has pret­ty much proved his worth as a full­back, so he will most like­ly start as the right back while Alba would be start­ing at the left back posi­tion. As far as the goal­keep­ing is con­cerned, Cas­si­las would once again start for Spain as he gained back his con­fi­dence and posi­tion in Real Madrid and played a part in win­ning the most pres­ti­gious club tro­phy for them.

Over­all, Span­ish team is arguably the finest in the world and plays an amaz­ing brand of foot­ball, and the only con­cern they have is in the strik­ing depart­ment which they have more than cov­ered in past play­ing with­out a strik­er.

Nether­lands on the oth­er side has a decent squad and a more than decent man­ag­er in Louis Van Gaal, who has agreed a con­tract with Man­ches­ter Unit­ed for their next coach. With the absence of Kevin Stroot­man in their squad and Robben and Van Per­sie being their only super­stars, it would be a tough cam­paign for Van Gaal. Wes­ley Snei­jder is not even half the play­er that he was in South Africa last world cup, and he would have to car­ry the entire cre­ative bur­den in the mid­field on him­self if Nether­land is to have a chance in this tour­na­ment. With the pres­ence of Nigel de Jong and Jor­di Clasie, Nether­land would be hard to break in on coun­ters. More­over, Arjen Robben and Van Per­sie alone in attack can weave mag­ic and some hope for the Nether­lands.

Pre­dic­tion: We pre­dict Spain to win this match 2–0.
Play­ers to Watch: Van Per­sie and Ini­es­ta

Eng­land vs Italy

The final game in the open­ing three days is Eng­land against Italy. Eng­lish team is cur­rent­ly con­sid­ered an under­dog thanks to their dis­ap­point­ing per­for­mances in the recent World Cups but it won’t be wrong to say that the Eng­lish team has approved a lot late­ly. The emerg­ing tal­ents of Daniel Stur­ridge, Adam Lal­lana, Raheem Ster­ling, Dan­ny Wel­back and Alex Oxlade-Cham­ber­lain, the Eng­lish team should be more hope­ful this sum­mer.

Steven Ger­rard has been in phe­nom­e­nal form and with Frank Lam­pard along­side him, it makes a per­fect cre­ative mid­field and with the likes of Wayne Rooney and Stur­ridge in the attack, it would be a great force in attack. Cahill has had the best sea­son of his life with Chelsea and Jagiel­ka is all set to join him in defense, so it would be right to say that the Eng­lish team is very well bal­anced in all depart­ments and can give a fight to any team.

Italian’s strength has been in the ver­sa­til­i­ty of their play­ers and their defense being always top-notch, this term it is no dif­fer­ent. Italy has a great defense but they lack some fresh legs in the mid­field as Pir­lo, and De Rossi would once again be expect­ed to guide their mid­field. Their strike force has Balotel­li, Cer­ci and Insigne to score for them and over­all they have an impres­sive team, how­ev­er, it’s not as excel­lent as it used to be some years before.

Pre­dic­tion: Eng­land may not be the favorite in the World Cup, but we pre­dict Eng­land to win this match 1–0 as their team final­ly looks to gel in and play some fine foot­ball.
Play­ers to watch: Wayne Rooney and De Rossi

Teams to watch in the World Cup:

Spain: Hav­ing deserved the most favorite in this tour­na­ment; Spain has all that it takes to win this world cup. They have a per­fect team and a super­star play­ing in every posi­tion. Not only their suc­cess in the past, but the fact that it was both the Span­ish teams that won the Europa league and played Cham­pi­ons League this year more than tells the depths of tal­ent Spain is pro­duc­ing. The rise of Atleti­co Madrid in Span­ish league and win­ning La Liga also explains how deeply enriched Span­ish squad is. It would come to us as no sur­prise if they win this tour­na­ment as well.

Bel­gium: Known to be the dark horse in this tour­na­ment. Bel­gium has in incred­i­bly tal­ent­ed team. They have arguably the best goal­keep­er present­ly in Thibaut Cour­tois. In the mid­field they have play­ers like Eden Haz­ard on his way to fol­low the boots of Chris­tiano Ronal­do and Leo Mes­si. The tal­ent­ed winger has aston­ished the world with his hero­ics at Chelsea. More­over, they have Lukaku, Adnan Januzaj, Kevin De Bruyne and Vin­cent Kom­pa­ny who are all at the top of their games. Don’t be sur­prised if this team ends up reach­ing till the semi finals.

Play­ers to Watch:

Chris­tiano Ronal­do: It’s not a sur­prise that his name tops our list. He’s one of the finest play­ers foot­ball world has ever seen. He sin­gle hand­ed­ly made Por­tu­gal qual­i­fy for the World Cup and he sin­gle hand­ed can win the tro­phy for them. If there’s one per­son who can do it after Diego Maradona, it is Chris­tiano Ronal­do.

Leo Mes­si: On more than sev­er­al occa­sions he has expressed his desire to achieve some­thing with his nation­al team. He has failed to do so in the past, but it looks like this would be his time to shine for his nation­al team final­ly.

Eden Haz­ard: The tal­ent­ed Chelsea play­ers have impressed at all lev­els already and he would be all set to explode his skills in the biggest stage of the game. He recent­ly won the young PFA best play­er award and his daz­zling drib­bling would be a treat to watch for the fans.

Wayne Rooney: Eng­lish team has failed to impress at sev­er­al occa­sions but this could well be their year. Wayne Rooney is a fig­ure the entire Eng­land is look­ing up to. He’s an amaz­ing play­er who can sin­gle hand­ed­ly change the paths of games and as Jose Mour­in­ho said, it could be Wayne Rooney’s world cup.

10 Inter­est­ing Facts about FIFA World Cup 2014
1.  This will be the first world cup ever to have goal-line tech­nol­o­gy
2.   It’s the 2nd time Brazil is host­ing a world cup
3.   Brazil is the fifth coun­try to host the world cup twice
4.   A para­plegic teenag­er will take the first kick of this world cup
5.   25 Ref­er­ees will offi­ci­ate this tour­na­ment
6.   Ref­er­ees will be allowed to stop match­es 2/3 times due to weath­er cir­cum­stances
7.   FIFA will ban play­ers from show­ing mes­sages under­neath their foot­ball shirt
8.   Ger­many will play their 100th World Cup Match when they will play against Por­tu­gal
9.   Van­ish­ing sprays will be used to pro­vide a short-term visu­al mark­er
10.   No Scan­di­na­vian coun­try will par­tic­i­pate in this world cup