Notwithstanding Michael Ballack’s absence from this World Cup, I still believe Germany is the team to beat in this group. Some of the more prominent names from Germany’s recent past like Oliver Neuville, Torsten Frings and Jens Lehman are absent from this squad (Neuville has retired from football) and the only field players born before 1981 are a defender, Arne Friedrich and a forward, Miroslav Klose.
In goal, I believe that Manuel Neuer may be the starter, although I have a personal preference for Tim Wiese. Wiese is effective against penalties. On defense, Germany is solid with Arne Friedrich, Jerome Boateng (the brother of the man whose foul knocked Ballack out of the cup), Serdar Tasci and Per Mertesacker as central defenders, with possibly Dennis Aogo or Arne Friedrich moving over to right back and Philipp Lahm, who likes to go forward on the attack on the left.
The midfield is equally impressive with familiar names like Bastian Schweinsteiger and Thomas Hitzlsperger, but look for Mesut Ozil to be a breakout player and Sami Khedira , Ballack’s replacement and Marko Marin to be important factors for the Germans as well.
In the attack, Germany is impressive by their sheer size, with all of them near or over six feet tall. I see a pairing of Lukas Podolski, possibly with Stefan Kiessling, but more likely with Mario Gomez. Newly naturalized Brazilian-born Cacau will provide good pace off the bench and Miroslav Klose will also probably not start, but is likely to be called upon, especially to spell the starters if the Germans are comfortably ahead.
Australia has an impressive keeper in Mark Schwarzer, some good defensive options in Lucas Neill, Scott Chipperfield, David Carney and a fairly decent midfield in Mark Bresciano, Tim Cahill, Vince Grella and Rich Garcia. What they don’t have is a really good forward attacker like Mark Viduka in the last World Cup. Harry Kewell is struggling to get fit before the start, but the worst thing for the Socceroos is that they will face Germany first. If they fail to get a point in that game, I believe that the winner of the Serbia v Ghana match, assuming there is a winner, will have a significant edge, especially if it’s Ghana.
Serbia did well in qualification, with a an excellent goal differential (+14) , that speaks to their defense. The likely keeper will be Vladimir Stojkovic, a well traveled, but effective stopper. Their back line features Nemanja Vidic, a strong and effective defender for Manchester United and Branislav Ivanovic, who plays for Chelsea, but can be a bit slow. The midfield anchors are Milan Jovanovic on the offense and Dejan Stankovic on defense. Milos Krasic will likely have a role as a playmaker, but that’s where I think that they have the same problem as Australia. Marko Pantelic has skills, but scored one goal in nine games during qualification (Jovanovic led with five goals) and Nikola Zigic is the tallest professional footballer in the world at 6’8″, making him Serbia’s answer to Peter Crouch. That’s not a compliment, by the way.
Ghana, even without Michael Essien are still impressive. Bear in mind that they won the Under 20 World Cup last year and have a number of players who play in Europe. John Paintsil, Hans Sarpei, Isaac Vorsah and John Mensah along with keeper Richard Kingson should anchor the defense. The Boateng brothers (Kevin-Prince and Derek) along with Stephen Appiah and Sully Muntari bring up the midfield, with Asamoah Gyan, Matthew Amoah and possibly Under 20 WC star, Dominic Adiayah forming an impressive front line.
I believe that Ghana and Germany go through with Germany winning the group.
Cross-posted at Beautiful Horizons.
Jackalot
I Think you too for believe that Ghana and Germany go through with Germany winning the group.
CJ
My man crush on Miro Klose makes me hold out hope that he’ll get some serious pitch time.
SRW1
Slight correction: Thomas Hitzelsperger did not make the German team, actually not by a mile. His form dipped mightily when his club, VfB Stuttgart, got into its by now almost habitual crisis during the first part of the regular season in the Bundesliga and Hitzelsperger got benched. To gain game practice Htzelberger changed club during the winter pause in Germany and joined Lazio Rome, but didn’t manage to break into the starting IX there either. So he was dropped by coach Löw. Rumors have it that Hitzelsperger will be playing in the Premier League next season.
burnspbesq
Australia got scorched by the US in its last warmup match. Ended 3-1, and the US wasted several other gift-wrapped scoring chances. Doesn’t bode well for the Socceroos.
Mark S.
I’ll go with Germany and Serbia (Germany winning it). Essien is a huge loss for Ghana.
Lab Partner
They better just go ahead and start the World Cup this week. The way the injuries are stacking up there ain’t gonna be no one left to play in a month.
iasa
I have high hopes for Ghana, but they have disappointed me before. I’ll be quite content with a second round loss to England.
LarsThorwald
I don’t see what this has to do with the NFL, still.
[Last warning. Any further comments like this will be deleted]
MattR
Interesting article over at CNN about the fitness required of World Cup referees.
PanAmerican
@Lab Partner:
Red cards and injuries are part of the deal. Squad depth is how Italy, Germany and Brazil plow through to so many finals.
Mark S.
Is it just me or do referees give out a ton more red and yellow cards in the World Cup? US-Italy and Netherlands-Portugal are two matches from the last WC where it seemed everyone on both teams got at least a yellow card, and some of them seemed like the ref was making up for an earlier dubious call. While I don’t get to see a ton of club matches, it doesn’t seem like the refs there are so trigger happy.
Ronnie P
I think FIFA often tries to use the World Cup as a place to establish new refereeing guidelines, and this results in problems. But the other issue is every league has its own way of playing. A hard challenge in England might be a yellow card elsewhere, and this means that players aren’t always clear how the WC matches are going to be called.
JenJen
I’m Team Germany all the way right after Team USA gets knocked out, so this is a pretty delicious post and I certainly concur with Randinho about the way Group D ends up. :-)
Pooh
Yeah, the Aussies looked like utter crap this morning, far cry from the team of 4 years ago who got Grosso’d.
R-Jud
I will be the lone Yankee at a USA-England viewing party with 35 invited guests next week. I doubt I will be able to convince the other foreigner to have my back as he is French. Pray for me.
Also, the advertising over here in Blighty is pretty hilarious. Today in the drug store I passed a display of face masks, salt scrubs, manicure kits, and whatnot that was prominently labeled “LADIES’ WORLD CUP PAMPERING”.
I will be buying beer and watching the footy, thanks.
wobbly
Children. We’re a nation of children. Anyone past the age of 18 who pays attention to “sports” is a child.
Unless it’s horseracing. Belmont Stakes is on today and you can have your World Cup!
Violet
@R-Jud:
Well, there’s no love lost between the English and the French. You might just find the French individual will support the US just to stick it to the English. Gotta be a tough call for someone from France, though.
luc
Ballack did play awful in his past worldcup appearances (looking more like a retiree). I have the feeling his injury will strengthen the german team.
Mark S.
For you compulsive gamblers, here’s who British bookies like to win it all:
Spain
Brazil
Argentina
England
Holland
and on down to North Korea and New Zealand.
dadanarchist
WIN.
Peter Crouch is the Shaq of football.
Go Black Stars!
Brandon
This is most likely the weakest group in the entire field. Serbia, who are underrated, and Germany to advance. Not much else to say except I love that the German guys name is “Pig Farmer”.
Also, Stankovic is NOT a defensive midfielder. His is an attacking midfielder, typically from a wing. He has played that role at Inter for a long time.
Bootlegger
@Brandon:
Actually, Schweinsteiger means “rising pig”, as steiger means “something going up”.
Hard not to go with Germany and Serbia from his group, but three of the teams lack depth and injuries or red cards to turn the tide in Ghana or the Aussies favor.
Losing Ballack may be the best thing that ever happened to Germany.
Oh, and when the NFL can pull together a championship that literally represents the entire sporting world, the largest pool of athletes for any event, then “throwball” fans can talk shite about the REAL football.
stu47
even with Essien down, Id still go Germany and Ghana……Im just not sure about Serbia in the big competitions, and any thought about Australia went out the door today.
Germany looked good against Bosnia the other night
Anastsius
Germany is bringing their youngest team in ages, many unknown players, I hope it works out.
The defense is a little shacky but still their strongest asset. The attack is terrible. Klose and Gomez barely got any playtime in Munich, they are far away from top form but then there is Müller who played phenomenally this season and Cacau who really shook things up last weeks against Bosnia Herzegovina.
Schweinsteiger, Marin and Khedira also played really well together in the 2nd half.
Go Germany!
r€nato
@Mark S.: Naturally, I have to root for Italy… but I have not seen a damned thing to convince me that they will make it past the quarter-finals, let alone defend their title. They looked terrible in the Euro 2008 tournament and while friendlies aren’t exactly indicative of how a team will compete when a game counts… I’ve watched most of the friendlies since 2007 and not once have I seen the kind of play that convinces me that Lippi has gli azzurri ready to repeat.
Oh well, maybe Materazzi can succeed in baiting some other player to head-butt him…
Randy Paul
@SRW1: My bad.
Randinho
@wobbly: Take it elsewhere.
Randinho
@Brandon: For Serbia/Serbia & Montenegro/Yugoslavia he has played as a defensive midfielder. Compare his shots and assists stats between club and country and that bears it out.
Some immigrant guy
Germany to go through because that’s what they do in major tournaments.
But quite a bunfight for the second spot.
I lean towards Serbia actually, they were hugely impressive coming through Euro qualifying and are going to be very tough to break down.
Ghana will miss Essien, and Australia are not quite as lively an outfit as the team that did pretty well in the last world cup. Even at full strength they’d do well to beat Serbia, and one interesting fact – there is a quite sizeable Serbian expat community in South Africa. For whatever reason, when the Balkan conflict broke out some 20 years ago, Serbians who wanted nothing to do with the war showed up in decent numbers in Johannesburg… one of the surprises of this world cup could be how well supported Serbia is.