who do you think will win the WC2002?
Here are the favorites

1. France
2. Brazil
3. Argentina
4. Holland
5. Portugal
6. Italy
7. Germany
8. Paraguay
9. Chechian Republic
10. Other..

[ 07-18-2001: Message edited by: DJLethal ]

Nobody knows who is going to win it. Too early to tell. If they played today, France will win. Love 'em or hate 'em, you have got to admire the talent they have.

Yeah, this days France is best.

No. Wrong answer guys. By far France is the best in Europe, but Argentina is the best team in the world right now. Claudio Lopez, Batistuta, Veron, Crespo, Zanetti, Walter Samuel. They are very, very good!

Its gonna be Australia all the way mate.

But seriously it will probably be between France,Argentina,Italy and maybe Brazil if they can get their act together.

Go Canada!

Ha! Yeah right! Are they even in it?

Maybe Japan or Korea since they have "homefield" advantage.... :eek: ;)

My favs are Italy and Argentina. France suck. I would like to add Netherlands too in the list, they are cool.

My favs are Italy and Argentina. France suck. I would like to add Netherlands too in the list, they are cool.

Well I'd love to be able to say England, but seeing as we're only clinging on to qualification, my pick is Argentina. In addition to the team they have now (Batistuta, Crespo, Palermo, Veron, Samuel, Simeone, Ortega etc) look at the new rising stars such as Saviola, Riquelme and Aimar! They're gonna take some stopping!

Mike

My vote goes for Argentina. I believe that if the Cup was held today, they would win but much can happen in a year...
And the best team doesn't always win...

Argentina
Anywhere Anytime Anyplace

I think it will be between Argentina Italy France and Holland. I just hope Holland will qualify!! They will have to win in Ireland september first.

right now i would say Italy,France and Argentina on present form.

i wish i could say Scotland,but we probably wont even get there.it will all be decided in a few days in september

Holland will win

Defitnetly Argentina especially because of Saviola.

Originally posted by Nimreitz:
<STRONG>No. Wrong answer guys. By far France is the best in Europe, but Argentina is the best team in the world right now. Claudio Lopez, Batistuta, Veron, Crespo, Zanetti, Walter Samuel. They are very, very good!</STRONG>

Argentina have a very good team. but let me list a france line up for today:
bartez (I swear he is the weakest link)
thuram, desily, lizarazu, lebouf, candella(they make the guy above look good, try getting past them)
zidane, pires, micoud, karembou, viera, dugary, petit (wanna play ball with these guys? I didn't think so :p )
Henry, trezeguet, wiltord, anelka, djorkaeff
( hmmm, desily doen't like practice because of these speed demons. They have goal mouth awareness, one bad move and they make you pay, big time ).

The best team doesn't always win, don't get me wrong. Everyone knows that france has had some luck in the past (e.g. france vs italy euro2000) but to be a champion, you need luck.

By the way, I am not a France supporter. My team is Holland (the worst penalty kick taking team in the world), but I respect/acknowledge the talent that france has. It is a good generation for them. And as for argentina, they have a good generation now and a good generation coming (youth world cup).

[ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: the_man ]

I also believe Argentine will win in 2002. I am glad everyone is recognizing Argentina's team I can't remember a time when most of the world agreed that out team was one of the best. :D Also I wonder if many people saw the Junior World Cup in Argentina..many new interesting players. Obviously Saviola but also I liked D'Alessandro, Coloccini, Maxi Rodriquez and Medina. However I believe the most exciting player to come out in the last few years is Roman Riquelme. I have talking about him for a while now, I seriously think he is the unknown, underrated Best Player in the World right now. Without disrespecting Rivaldo o Veron but he is. Even Ronaldo is totally enamoured with him. He gave his blessings to Barcelona to sign him. I can't wait for Europe to see this amazing player when he eventually goes to Barca. Saviola with Riquelme will almost be like cheating not fair for the rest of the teams. Real can stay with their overrated overpayed stars.. Barcelona will make people talk. However that is just my humble opinion. We'll see in the future. :D

Holland is by no means a favourite. If they manage to qualify, which is highly unlikely, FIFA will suspend the rest of their best eleven players for some crappy drug charge that cannot be scientifically proved. Even Holland can't win games with a reserve team.

Cheers,

King Kenny.

Yeah! Korea is going to take it all the way!

Remember this one: JAPAN . ;)

I think Brazil willl qualify but I dont think they will get good results ..

Well, Argentina may be (one of the) best in the world, but remember the quarter final of WC98? That's right, Holland beats Argentina. Ofcorse you can't compare 3 years ago with now, but it sais that Holland has a very strong team too.

van der Sar(he has had his top years, I hope Westerveld will play instead of him)

Reiziger(good), Stam(Best center defender in the world), Hofland(young talent), van Bronckhorst(attacking defender)

Zenden(fast, atletic and a good shot), Cocu(on of the best players of Holland and Barça), van Bommel(A great midfielder), Overmars(same as Zenden)

Some good attackers:
Kluivert(always scores)Hasselbank(goal making machine)van Nistelrooy(the master)Makaay(doesn't even need a chance to score), van Hooijdonck(free kick and header master)

I really think that if Holland qualifies(please, god, let them qualify) and if they don't have to win with a penalty shoot-out(they were knocked out in 92, 96, 98 and 2000 by penalty's) and if they have some luck, they make a very very good chance to win it

Go ahead and call me a stupid American, but I really think the US has a good chance. Keller is a great goalie and Josh Wollf and Clint Mathis were playing as well together as any 2 forwards in the world before they both got hurt. On a trip back to reality, as much as I hate to say it, I like France to beat Brazil in the final exactly the same way they did in '98, badly.

Go HOlland

YAYAYA
they will win
they have to win this time
they have the best team

France won world cup 98'
and Euro 2000

Holland :eek:

Aren't you all forgetting the real favourites? ENGLAND, HAHAHAHAHA :)
They suck so much, it's really funny.

i'll second that Juventus.Hear Hear!!!!

lol! Nah, England haven't done much recently but the blue and white south americans will win it. isn't it strange that no one thinks brasil will win. they really need to get back on form

france will win the world cup


or scotland lol

---------------------
Go ahead and call me a stupid American, but I really think the US has a good chance. Keller is a great goalie and Josh Wollf and Clint Mathis were playing as well together as any 2 forwards in the world before they both got hurt.
----------------------
Well, with all the respect, I think US has got an ok team, and indeed a good goalie, but they don't have any experience to be in a quarter/half final of a WC. And that is one of the things that you need to go further in the tournament. What happend with Croatia last WC was just luck and the fact that the other teams underastimated the team. And Croatia had a great team. Maybe US will make it to the second round, or even the quarter final, but I don't think any further.

[ 07-23-2001: Message edited by: DJLethal ]

The following sides might not even make it to the world cup:

Brazil
England
Holland

If they don't the world cup will suck big time and will be the worst ever. You can't have three of the biggest names in world football miss out on the world cup!!

No offense but Senegal qualified for the world cup a couple of days ago ( http://www.soccernet.com/worldcup/news/2001/0721/20010721senegal.html ). I reckon that far too many teams from Africa and Asia qualify for the world cup.

Would you rather see Brazil/England/Holland at the world cup or Senegal!! These qualifying rounds are screwed up big time. Why have:

Holland
Portugal
Republic of Ireland

in the same group and Germany and England in the same group!! Especially when there's groups like this:

Poland
Belarus
Ukraine
Wales
Armenia
Norway

and this:

Russia
Slovenia
Switzerland
Yugoslavia
Faroe Islands
Luxembourg

:mad: :mad: :mad:

I'd like to see Australia make it to world cup so we have a team from Oceania.

I think Argentina or France will win it but never discount the likes of Germany, Spain and Italy.

[ 07-23-2001: Message edited by: Football Kingz ]

USA!!! USA!!! USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!

England aren't that bad. Pretty Damn good in fact. But Arentina will win for sure, i said that a year ago, and i'm stickin with it

**** that
Its gonna be Australia all the way
GO THE SOCCEROOS!!!!!!!!!

I think it will be Italia. They did very well in Euro 2000, they are doing great in the WC qualifying, They have a legitamite shot at winning for sure.

I agree in many aspects with Football Kingz. The qualifying group with Republic of Ireland, Holland, and Portugal is retarded. All 3 of those teams can beat Russia, Yugoslavia, Norway, Poland.. any of the teams in the 2 groups Football Kingz listed. Also, I agree too many teams from Asia and Africa qualify. What should be done is instead of teams like Tunisia and Senegal directly qualifying for the World Cup, they should do what Australia has to do (play 5th place South American team) except against a European team. I have no problem with teams like Senegal and Tunisia qualifying, as long as they beat teams like Portugal or Holland.

Japan and Korea are going to get hyped and suck. Japan could fare somewhat good though, possibly qualify for quarterfinals if they get a really good group draw. Even Japan's national coach calls the J-League a joke. I believe he said something like, "If you score a goal you are some sort of great player in the J-League and all you are is overpaid. Not many J-League players will leave because they are immortal in Japan and won't be able to hack European football.

My final prediction will be Argentina. If the tables are set up right, i'd like to see Germany vs. Argentina in the finals.

Surprise teams: United States and Costa Rica (assuming they still qualify)

Exactly Edgar Davids. I don't mind a team like Senegal qualifying but they should have to do what Australia are needing to do to qualify. I know a lot of people will say that you can't call it a world cup if there are only european and south american teams in it but surely FIFA can think up a better qualifying system. The european and south american qualifying stages are far too hard while the African, Asian, Concacaf qualifying stages are far too easy. These are the number of teams that qualify from each zone(region):

CONCACAF: 3
AFRICA: 5
ASIA: 2-3 (4-5 including Korea, Japan)
CONMEBOL: 4-5
UEFA: 13-14 (14-15 including France)
OCEANIA: 0-1

What does everyone think about that?

I think its crazy having the world cup in two countries and those two countries, Korea and Japan both qualifying automatically. I reckon they should have played each other home and away and whoever won qualfied automatically. The other team had to go through the asian qualifying.

I was shocked to see that the USA were 15th in the FIFA World Ratings! They must be a pretty good side. A couple of kiwis are playing for club sides in the US. Have you heard of them?

[ 07-25-2001: Message edited by: Football Kingz ]

Originally posted by DJLethal:
<STRONG>Well, Argentina may be (one of the) best in the world, but remember the quarter final of WC98? That's right, Holland beats Argentina. Ofcorse you can't compare 3 years ago with now, but it sais that Holland has a very strong team too.

van der Sar(he has had his top years, I hope Westerveld will play instead of him)

Reiziger(good), Stam(Best center defender in the world), Hofland(young talent), van Bronckhorst(attacking defender)

Zenden(fast, atletic and a good shot), Cocu(on of the best players of Holland and Barça), van Bommel(A great midfielder), Overmars(same as Zenden)

Some good attackers:
Kluivert(always scores)Hasselbank(goal making machine)van Nistelrooy(the master)Makaay(doesn't even need a chance to score), van Hooijdonck(free kick and header master)

I really think that if Holland qualifies(please, god, let them qualify) and if they don't have to win with a penalty shoot-out(they were knocked out in 92, 96, 98 and 2000 by penalty's) and if they have some luck, they make a very very good chance to win it</STRONG>

Hey DJ, don't forget EDGAR DAVIDS and FRANK DE BOER because they will be suspended for a year and that means that they are just in time for the WC 2002 and Davids is one of the best midfielders in the world right :D

Anyway, Holland needs to qualify first against Ireland in september, let's hope they'll succeed.
My vote right now goes to Argentina as well, they are really good and damn difficult to beat but we will see in 2002.
Things maybe will be different then and there could be another outcome.

Brazil won't have a chance because of Ronaldo with a broken leg :D . Argentina will rule.