World Cup: A preview of Group B

On paper, Group B of the FIFA World Cup 2010 looks well set up for Diego Maradona’s Argentina to dominate the whole way. However, like I keep saying, football is not played on paper. It may seem that Nigeria, South Korea, and Greece are inferior to the South American giants but each of them have enough in their tank to overcome the Argentines on a given day. When we add a clueless manager in Maradona into the mix, we see that the group is actually rather competitive.

The two favorites

Due to its reputation as a football giant, Argentina is certainly the favorite in this group, with the crafty South Koreans following in second. Former European champions Greece will surely have an argument about having greater odds than the Asian giants, but given that South Korea made a semi-final appearance as recently as 2002, they are poised to end up slightly ahead of Greece in the betting circles.

In my opinion, the disciplined Greek defense will not be enough to overcome the South Koreans, who will qualify from the group along with Argentina. While I reiterate that Nigeria has the potential to upstage any of the other three teams, I don’t think they will do enough to prevail to the knock-out stages.

Watch out for

There is absolutely no doubt that Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez will steal the spotlight despite the presence of  other great attacking talents such as Diego Milito, Gonzalo Higuain, and Sergio Aguero within their own team. Besides Argentina’s brilliant strike-force, the Evertonian duo of Joseph Yobo and Yakubu should also be able to impress while playing for Nigeria.

Former Newcastle United striker Obafemi Martins will also seek to bounce back into the spotlight with a few goals. For Greece, it will be the big men commanding all the attention as Celtic forward Georgios Samaras and Liverpool defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos will strive to make an impression. Finally, as cliched as it may sound, Manchester United’s Park Ji-Sung will clearly be leading the way for the Republic of Korea.

Keys to success

Since no other team in this group can match up with Argentina’s offense, the only way for the others to try and eliminate Argentina is to punish Maradona’s often laughable tactics. Sure, he has five of the most explosive strikers in the world at his disposal, but as difficult as it may sound to shut the players down, a disciplined defensive effort can surely put up a fight if none of the Argentines know what exactly their manager wants from them.

At the end of the day, it is quite risky to rely on Maradona’s prospective blunders, and in order to proceed at Argentina’s expense the other teams need to play positive, attacking football throughout the group stages.

Predictions

Argentina will create plenty of chances against Nigeria but will not score more than twice against Nigeria in the group opener at Ellis Park, Johannesburg. However, they will manage to restrict the Nigerians to just one goal, thus winning 2-1 in the process.

South Korea will then draw 1-1 with Greece in Port Elizabeth that same day before also going on to lose 3-2 against Argentina at Soccer City, Johannesburg. Park Ji-Sung and his teammates will still have enough left in them to rebound against Nigeria by winning 1-0 in their final game of the group stages.

The Nigerians will pick up their only point in a goalless draw against the Greeks while the Argentines will hand the Greeks their only loss of the round in a 1-0 win in the final game of Group B. In short, Argentina will win the group with a perfect record while South Koreans will finish in second.

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