Soccer

» SimonMelville - Australia

Woah -- fightin' talk JC!

To be fair to the Oceania section, why does it have only 0.5 of a place at the World Cup? Shouldn't the World Cup represent the World? Or should we just have the richest European nations taking on Argentina and Brazil? Oceania is a weak area but then so was CONCACAF for years and no-one complained that Mexico had a relatively easy route to the finals.

I understand why the Aussies jumped ship -- Fifa have diddled Oceania for years so they have no option but to play the politics and join the increasingly important Asia bloc.

As for their chances at this year's finals, I think they can surpise the Croatians. Yes, they have a marvellous qualification record at home, but this isn't qualification. The Aussies have a decent team when they're all fit and they won't need much motivating to play the Croatians -- Skoko, Culina and Viduka all have Croatian roots while Joey Didulica, the reserve keeper, and centre back Josip Simunic for Croatia were both born Down Under.

That's assuming Brazil steam roller the group as we all expect and Japan are the whipping boys. I just don't see Croatia having the real quality players they used to have that can take them through the competition. I'm not saying Australia do, but they can certainly cause Croatia problems when they meet in the last Group F match in Stuttgart on 22nd June -- effectively a qualification play-off. Current prices at Betfair have Australia at 2.58 to win that match but 3.05 to qualify. Seems sensible to take the last price -- not exactly enticing prices but you may have goaded me into it.

-- posted by SimonMelville