Another fascinating group we have on our hands here, with a bunch of solid teams who have given great accounts of themselves over the years all meet in Group H. Poland come into the group as top seeds after a fantastic last few years. Lead by the Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski and marshalled so excellently at the back by Kamil Glik they will be the ones to beat here. They do lack a bit of World Cup experience as this is their first tournament since Germany 2006 and they have not gotten out of the group stage since Mexico '86. Standing in their way here are Colombia, the South American team had an up and down qualification period in which saw them finish 4th and earn their spot in Russia. They had heroics in Brazil in 2014 getting to the quarter final stage and losing to Brazil in a very close game. In 2014 they also met Japan, who they soundly beat 4-1 on their way to top spot in their group. I see them struggling in this group though as they are not the same side as 2014 and Russia is a lot different to Brazil. Senegal are arguably the best South African representative this year and deservedly hold that title due to having a fantastic squad. They are littered with top players in multiple areas of the pitch from back to front with the likes of; Kalidou Koulibaly, Idrissa Gueye, Keita Baldé and Sadio Mané all with world class ability. They do lack World Cup experience though as this is only their second ever apperance but they do have the capabilities of upseting a few teams here if they don't get stage fright. Japan, the legendary blue samurai round out this tough group. However they are probably a well beaten fourth best here as they just aren't as good as they used to be in the past. They lack real guile that they used to have in the past, they struggle to score and will prove costly in a group where the opposition can score at will. Their hopes rest as usual on Shinji Kagawa having a good game, but with Okazaki injured in training prior to the World Cup, i do not know who he can provide any goals for! Predictions 1st - Poland 2nd - Senegal 3rd - Colombia 4th - Japan
Squads
Goalkeepers Wojciech Szczęsny - Bartosz Białkowski - Łukasz Fabiański Defenders Michał Pazdan - Artur Jędrzejczyk - Thiago Cionek - Jan Bednarek - Kamil Glik - Bartosz Bereszyński - Łukasz Piszczek Midfielders Jacek Góralski - Karol Linetty - Grzegorz Krychowiak - Kamil Grosicki - Maciej Rybus - Jakub Błaszczykowski - Sławomir Peszko - Piotr Zieliński - Rafał Kurzawa Forwards Arkadiusz Milik - Robert Lewandowski (captain) - Łukasz Teodorczyk - Dawid Kownacki
Goalkeepers David Ospina - Camilo Vargas - José Fernando Cuadrado Defenders Cristián Zapata - Óscar Murillo - Santiago Arias - Yerry Mina - Johan Mojica - Farid Díaz - Dávinson Sánchez Midfielders Wílmar Barrios - Carlos Sánchez - Abel Aguilar - James Rodríguez - Juan Cuadrado - Mateus Uribe Jefferson Lerma - Juan Fernando Quintero Forwards Carlos Bacca - Radamel Falcao (captain) - Luis Muriel - Miguel Borja - José Izquierdo
On June 18 2018 19:02 haitike wrote: I want Japan and Colombia to pass
PLEASE.
This is the best Mundial group as everyone is aware. POLAND, POLAND, POLAND, LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOO IT IS TIME
Anyway, this is probably 50/50 on how Poland ends up in this group BUT we, Polish fans have high expectations from our representation. We have pretty tough opponents as both Colombia and Senegal can play a decent football and are physically demending BUT I hope.
We don't have any decent results but have really good players for almost every single position. Will see !
Edit : In all seriousness. I don't want to be in Lewy's shoes. He has a HUGE pressure on him. People are expecting AT least coming out from group. I know that team doesn't consist only of him. Zielinski (Napoli) has to prove himself as well. Glik is injured, still recovering from that retarded shoulder incident, no idea if he will play in first game - probably not. Grosicki is a great playmaker and runs fast. Blaszczykowski performed really well in last friendly against Lithuania. Milik is still Milik, he's good overall but can't shoot on goal, even when given a 100% situation. I know he carried us a bit in Euro '16 but that doesn't justify him being a troll in last months or even years.
DEF is pretty shaky without Glik, Pazdan does well and our new sub that is Bednarek performed REALLY well in last matches too.
On June 19 2018 20:49 Hider wrote: Do german TV seriously dub over non-natives speaking german because it's not fluent enough?
Hm? I didn't watch the last half hour, so if there was a concrete case I can't say, but generally this is ultra rare. And usually when they dub German speakers, those are Natives speaking awful dialects.