In the run-up to the World Cup I am going to try to preview each of the groups. I leave for Johannesburg (via Addis Ababa) on Wednesday, so things might get a bit hectic. Each preview will be brief and soon enough you’ll likely be able to mock me for being very, very wrong. Most of the time I’ll try to lead with my head, but my heart will sometimes dominate, and I’ll be especially likely to give the benefit of the doubt to African teams despite the rash of injuries that has hit some of the continent’s biggest stars in the last few days.
Group A, projected order of finish (top two, in bold, to advance):
France, South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay.
Comments:
How lucky France got. And how unlucky, as a result, South Africa, Mexico, and Uruguay got. This is far from the strongest group in the field, and would have been even weaker were it nor for France, not a top seed, drawing the slot they did. By all rights, given their sketchy qualifying, France should have ended up in a group of death. Instead they end up the de facto top seed. That luck should push them to the next round even if they have been utterly discombobulated as a squad for more than a year. To me this means that the South Africa-Mexico tournament opener will be the deciding game for the rest of the group (though Uruguay remains one of the biggest unknown factors in the field). I suspect that Bafana Bafana’s huge home-pitch advantage coupled with Mexico’s tendency to fall short in big games (and no stage in this year’s group stage will be bigger) will propel the South Africans to an unlikely (but symbolically perfect) second-place finish in the group. I’m not fool enough to think they will advance any beyond that, though Madiba Magic has accomplished crazier feats.
