Group G: Brazil, the Goliath among minnows
One of the countries tipped to win this year’s World Cup in Qatar is Brazil who are not only considered the best team in Group G, but also one of the strongest among the entire 32 nations for this year’s tournament.
They remain one of the unbeaten sides in international competitions in recent times and extended their unbeaten run to 14 when they dispatched the Black Stars 3-0 during their international friendly last September.
Advertisement
Pundits have described Group G as a Goliath among minnows affair with the five-time world champions competing against teams whose best performance at the World Cup is at the quarter final stage except Serbia who finished fourth at the 1930 tournament.
It appears the Selecaos, who are currently ranked number one by FIFA, are safe to come out of this group but the battle over who joins them to the next round would have to be fought among Cameroun, Serbia and Switzerland.
Cameroun
They are best remembered in the 1994 World Cup where their star, Roger Milla, dazzled the world by becoming the oldest player to play in the tournament at age 42. Milla, one of the top scorers at the 1990 tournament usually celebrated his goals with a trade mark dance by the corner flags.
Milla helped Cameroun to their best-ever finish in 1990 at the quarter final. After his reign emerged Samuel Eto’o who has been described as one of the world’s best strikers and even though he could not help the Indomitable Lions beat the 1990 record, the four-time World Cup participant has predicted Cameroun and Morocco final at Qatar.
Cameroun, who are ranked 43rd by FIFA, might not be the favourites of this group but they boast of some of the best players on the continent with the likes of Maxim Choupo- Moting of Bayern Munich, Vincent Aboubakar, Christopher Wooh, and Pierre Kunder among some of the top stars coach Rigobert Song could rely on to change the story of the West Africans.
The Indomitable Lions are one of the teams expected to make Africa proud in this tournament with their bronze winning performance at the last Africa Cup of Nations expected to motivate them to overcome any threats of Brazil to qualify for the next stage.
Serbia
Another team with the highest possibility of coming out of this group is Serbia, whose performance at the tournament has been somehow impressive over the years.
They finished fourth in their maiden appearance in 1930 and repeated that in 1962 but have also qualified for the quarter finals on three occasions. They have also exited at the group stages at a number of times and since 2006, they have not gone past the group stages, including the 2010 tournament in South Africa where they were beaten 1-0 by the Black Stars to exit the tournament.
Currently ranked 21st in the World, the performance of Serbia appears to be going down from third in 2010 when they lost to the Black Stars but they would be anticipating to use the World Cup to improve their rankings.
Participating in the World Cup for the 13th time, the Serbians would be hoping to change the script and with their top stars playing in some of the top European leagues, they are expected to pick one of the slots to the next stage of the competition.
Juventus duo of Dusan Vlahovic and Filip Kostic, Stafan Mitrovic, Milos Veljkovic, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Nemanja Radonjic, Ivan Ilic, Luka Jovic and Aleksandar Mitrovic are among the names Coach Dragan Stojković will have the luxury of relying on at the tournament.
Switzerland
They are currently ranked by FIFA as the 15th best team in the world and are the second best ranked team of Group G, but their previous eight appearances at the mundial have all ended at the group stages or round of 16 excerpt for 1934, 1938 and 1954 where their run got terminated at the quarter finals stage.
This time round, they would be hoping to do better than their previous appearances and they could be counting on players such as Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka, Ruben Vagas, Denis Zakaria, Djibril Sow, Xherdan Shaqiri, Edimilson Fernandes, Remo Freuler, and Fabian Frei among others.
Coach Murat Yakin has a difficult task ahead of him on how to motivate all these array of stars to ensure they deliver the results and go past their quarter-final berth this time round.
