Predicted Order of Finish: Italy, United States, Czech Republic, Ghana

Nearly dubbed the ‘Group of Death’, this group features four talented countries who could go deep into the tournament. But it also contains four teams with enough questions (okay, maybe not Italy) to justify predicting them to be on a plane home before the Round of 16.

Italy is the most balanced of all the World Cup favorites. And most importantly they are the healthiest, with no serious injuries to be concerned with and have been lifted by the return of forward Francisco Totti, out injured since the very beginning of the year. His partnership with Albert Gilardino and Luca Toni should see the Italians shed their defensive reputation and be a serious offensive threat. Yes, we are actually going to see the Azzuri score plenty of goals this year. But unlike other teams with several dangerous strkers upront (like Brazil, Argentina, and Holland), Italy are just as solid in defense and when threatened, are able to bring star midfielder Gennaro Gattuso into a more defensive position, even further shoring up the back.

Most will be picking the Czech Republic to finish second in this group, and on paper, they’d seem like a lock. But age and the treatment table have not been their friend and they are hobbling towards the start of the tournament. Nearly all of their top players have been hurt in the run up to the World Cup with Tomas Rosicky, Tomas Galasek, Milan Baros, and Jan Koller having all missed valuable preparation time due to injury. Also, midfielder Vladimer Smicer tearfully announced last week that he would miss the entire tournament. On the plus side, Pavel Nedved came out of international retirement to help the Czechs qualify and will be more than motivated for what will be his final international tournament.

The United States has no major injury worries, but in recent friendlies, the Americans have had a hard time scoring and living up to the standards they set when they got to the quarterfinals (and outplayed but lost to Germany) in 2002. Coach Bruce Arena has one of the better problems you can have with Reading’s Bobby Convey, Manchester City’s Claudio Reyna, PSV’s DaMarcus Beasley, and MLS stars Landon Donovan, John O’Brien and Pablo Mastroeni all vying for and deserving of four midfield spots. Getting out of the group will depend on Arena finding balance, and some goals, from his talented and now experienced players.

Ghana are not one of the African teams that are just happy to be in Germany. Though this is their first appearance in a World Cup, they have the talent to not only get some results, but get out of this group. Lead by Michael Essien and Fenerbahce’s Stephen Appiah, the Ghanians will live and die on the form of their midfield. They are also buoyed by the return of Ghanaian legend Samuel Kuffour in defense, who was kicked off of the team for the African Nations Cup due to an attitude that put himself before the team.

Four teams with not much between them make this a tight group. Italy, though, could win all three of their matches with second place coming down to goal difference. Though neither of the other three teams, at this moment, inspire much confidence up front, it?s the Americans with most potential to move on.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 5th, 2006 at 5:32 am and is filed under World Cup 2006. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.