Qatar might still surprise people. They are eagerly looking forward to this final tournament and also have all the support. And all African countries are of course also used to having to play football in these circumstances. Something European footballers are not used to. And it's also the middle of Europe's winter. If you play in England, for example, you have a chance that you were still in the snow 2 weeks before. Those are all factors that come into play. We can expect the Netherlands to have the weakest green, but it would be nice if Qatar goes to the next round.
What do you mean by surprise people? Get surprisingly good results and advance to next round? I don't think that's possible at all. They will just finish the group in last place and if they get a draw they are lucky. My expectation for them is to get exact zero points.
Some African teams are really good and if we see some of them in next stages I wouldn't be surprised. We saw Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal in previous tournaments do good things. I wouldn't expect any other club than European and South American to be in semi finals though. That's the stage things are going hotter and big teams don't do easy mistakes at that point.
So, host countries that have the opportunity to participate in a world cup without participating in a qualifying stage hardly have good results.
And in this year... excluding Holland (who will probably qualify first), I believe it's very difficult to see Qatar doing better than Ecuador or Senegal.
So I also believe that Qatar shouldn't get past the group stage.
I would not trust much because of the action that Ecuador has in the game, the truth is that I would like to see QATAR go to the round of 16, despite the fact that it is a country that did not make an effort to qualify for the World Cup, it should show a good f+ Ubtol and show that it is up to all the teams, for me this will be a good challenge, I don't know how the bets will be, but I think they could give a good surprise, not everyone expects QATAR to win, but in my opinion I would like to see something different, something that these countries can show why they are worthy of being a World Cup, and that Qatari football improves much more.
Supporting the Argentina team at the World Cup is obviously a very emotional endeavor. It is probably going to be the last World Cup for Lionel Messi. And the Argentina squad does look better compared to what they had at the last World Cup. Honestly, I think France has a much greater chance of winning the World Cup than Argentina. But at the same time, it is going to be truly something extraordinary to see the World Cup being lifted by the greatest footballer ever. But when we talk about regional performance, Europe is always going to be better compared to America.
Also for Messi and Ranaldo this will be their last world cup many other players are on the list.
Lets see who says goodbye to the world cup after taking home the trophy. But very excited for the matches to start so that we get charged up and participate to the fullest of our energy.
Not only for Mssi and CR7, but also for Neymar Jr, since he announced that it was also going to be his last World Cup, although things are a little more dramatic for Neymar because throughout his career the criticism has been very harsh towards him and I think that one of the biggest things he can do to silence them is to win the world cup, this is above CR7 and Messi together, and from what I've seen the Brazilian players have a lot of quality and they all understand each other in a great way, I think which is one of the most complete and strong teams that this World Cup in QATAR has, the Brazilians are always going to give a lot to talk about, this is something that everyone knows.