with the world cup still almost half a year away, who do you expect to make deep runs / win the thing?

my current ranking:

t1:

france
argentina
brazil

t2:

spain
belgium
germany
england

t3:

portugal
netherlands
denmark
uruguay

Brazil because they have the easiest run in to the final

I expect them to win their group, then they'll play one of Portugal/Ghana/Uruguay/South Korea in the RO16. Portugal are favourites for that group so Brazil probably play Uruguay. Then the best team they can face in the quarters is one of Spain/Germany/Belgium. Not the easiest but they'd rather play them than France, Argentina or, of course, England

Then in the semis they're up against the winners from a team in Group A and B. Who are the best teams in those groups? England, Netherlands and Senegal. Easy semifinal

I expect they'd play Argentina or France in the final, I think they'd beat France but not sure about Argentina

This post was edited by dro94 on Jun 12 2022 09:51am

People are heavily overestimating Brazil

i dunno, with brazil it's always really hard to tell imo. they are obviously never short of talent, the big question is: can they form a cohesive team that can deal with the massive expectations back home? if so, i can see them win the thing. if not, i could easily see spain of belgium eliminate them.

Belgium I feel like is a toss up, but for some reason I can see Spain taking Brazil out. I like Spain's team a lot actually

Croatia

are we sure about germany being in tier 2? i still dont trust this team

i think this world cup is extremely open and so called dark horses have the best chance in a long time

france has still the best squad and brazil is of course a top contender as well

but below that its a large field of wannabe contenders and underwhelming big names

i tiered it based on potential, draw, history, and most importantly: personal opinion. obviously none of that is set in stone, and i think you could make reasonable arguments against any of the positions. for now, i'm happy with it (despite certain nations league performances), but obviously it can turn out to be completely off, that's the fun of it. feel free to make your own list and share it.

i think Nations League kind of shows how the World Cup is going to be. (maybe not group stage but quarter finals and onwards).
bunch of draws. will come down to: does your team have a clinical finisher who can score when it really matters to finish the game 1:0

If England plays like this, then the USA can easily win that group.