6. Uruguay, a seeded team during the World Cup draw, was meant to get an easy group, but here you get four-time world champions Italy and champions of 1966 England. However, you cannot frighten Oscar Tabarez easily. The coach, who has been in charge of the two-time World champions for 8 years now, has gathered together the best team since 1950, when Uruguay won the first Brazilian World Cup. The top ten most capped Uruguayan players include 7 players involved in the current World Cup squad. Two of them are the Uruguayan all-time topscorers. Of course, we talk about Diego Forlan, the best player of the previous World Cup, and Luis Suarez, the topscorer of the Premier League, who, joined by Edinson Cavani and many other players from the European top shelves, will surely be a top favourite to go at least as far as they did four years ago. Tabarez’s players are all fit and no star is missing from the squad. Let’s not forget to have a close watch on Gaston Ramirez, Abel Hernandez and Jose Gimenez, the latter, an Atletico Madrid defender, being only 19 years old.
2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™ Official Book
5. The Costa Ricans are in the group of four, where the other three have won the World Cup 7 times altogether. This seems to be the main sentence about Jorge Maria Pinto’s side destiny in this World Cup. And it is not much important that Heiner Mora and Alvaro Saborio, the third best Costarican topscorer of all time, are out with injuries. If the Central American team has to show some decent football in this World Cup, then it is up to the goalkeeper Keylor Navas of Levante, the PSV striker Bryan Ruiz and the hope of the Costa Rican football, the 21-year-old Olympiacos-man Joel Campbell, whose transfer rights belong to Arsenal.
4. Now Roy Hodgson claims to be working on building a new team, which has to be much stronger than the one we saw 2 years ago. Wayne Rooney agreed on this. The changes include the injured Theo Walcott, and Ashley Cole, Ashley Young, Michael Carrick, Jermaine Defoe and Andy Carrol, who all were dropped by the experienced manager. Andros Townsend, a promising fullback was not taken to Brazil either. On the other hand, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Luke Shaw, Raheem Sterling and Ross Barkley, all 20 or under, are in to shine next to Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney. Is it Roy Hodgson who has taken a mistake, or the bookmakers, leaving England out of the World Cup after the group stage, will be clear very soon. Oh yes, and there is the breakthrough of the season, the 32-year-old Ricky Lambert, who just signed for Liverpool.
3. Gli Azzurri, the vice champions of Europe and four-time World champions, are again out of the top 5 favourites to win the tournament. And again these predictions are not a penny worth, as Italy might be thrown out of the tournament after three matches, as well as go all the way and lift the trophy. The world is witnessing a changing Italy. Cesare Prandelli is one of the few Italian international coaches, if not the only one, who doesn’t claim to have the strongest defence in the world. On the other hand, the play they demonstrate has become much pleasant for neutral fans. Gianluigi Buffon, holding the Italian record of most caps with his 140 appearances, hopes to lift the trophy exactly as him and three other playmates of current squad did 8 years ago. The age is not a problem for Italians, as there is still no Italian who controls the defence better than Giggi and passes better then Andrea Pirlo. There is always something to discuss around Italian squads in major tournaments. This time Prandelli had to leave Giuseppe Rossi, Mattia Destro, Alessandro Florenzi and Alberto Gilardino at home, though all of them had some fantastic seasons in Serie A. The injury blow of Riccardo Montolivo might hurt, though. Now we got a chance to enjoy the play of Lorenzo Insigne of Napoli, Ciro Immobile, already a Borussia Dortmund striker, and Marco Verratti of PSG. No, I didn’t forget him. Mario Balotelli is fit and will demonstrate his abilities in and out of the pitch as long as Italy is alive in the World Cup.
2. This is the first coaching job for Sabri Lamouchi, a prominent French player, who was narrowly left away from the French legendary World Cup 1998 squad. And this is the last major tournament for the legendary Didier Drogba, who turned 36 earlier this year. So this has to be a tournament to remember for Ivory Coast. The accent is on experienced players this time, as youngsters like Abdul Razak of West Ham and Lacina Traore of Everton weren’t good enough for Lamouchi’s troop. The biggest names to be dropped were Arouna Kone, another Everton-man, and CSKA Moskva striker Seydou Doumbia. However, there is no doubt that Kolo Toure, Yaya Toure, Didier Drobga, together with in-form Wilfried Bony of Swansea and Gervinho of Roma, are ready to terrorize their contenders. It might be worth to hold an eye on the 21-year-old Toulouse defender Serge Aurier, a player for future.
1. The ambitious side of Alberto Zaccheroni includes a lot of young players, surely inspired by the home World Cup of 2002. There were only 4 players of the entire squad playing abroad by then. 12 years later more than half of the team plays regularly in the top divisions of Europe. All the best players of Zaccheroni are fit and ready to conquer Brazil, as they claim. The group is not the most difficult to advance from. The Germany-based Uchida (Schalke 04), G. Sakai (Stuttgart), captain Hasebe (Eintracht F.) and Okazaki (Mainz), together with Italy-based Nagatomo (Inter) and Honda (Milan) will be a good addition to their biggest star Shinji Kagawa of Manchester United. Yasuhito Endo starts the tournament with a brilliant record of 144 caps for his national team. The youngest player in the squad is the promising talent Gotoku Sakai, who turned 23 earlier this year. The Italian coach has gathered a pretty tough team, which was the first to earn tickets to Brazil back in the beginning of June 2013.
The Official 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™ Fact File
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