Ballsy’s Saturday Night World Cup Group Previews and Open Thread – Group H

Again, a huge THANK YOU to Dok for fixing the Clone function! You can call it laziness. I prefer to call it efficiency. Either way, I can now crank these out and be ahead of the game.

While Hippo may choose to ignore this year’s tournament to be held in the USA, México, and Canadá for purely spiteful reasons (no judgement here, we salute spite!), I maintain that international competitions like the just concluded Olympics and the World Cup are the last opportunities for people to get out of their bubbles and realize there is a beautiful world out there full of people that don’t let politics get in the way of enjoying their lives.

With that said, let’s continue with our group previews, shall we? A heads up: I will not be going in alphabetical order. I will tackle first the groups that have been already defined as there are still some intercontinental qualifications games to be played.

Tonight’s group is Group H!

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Team Comparison

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Group Schedule

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Best picture that I found on the first page of Google Image Search using “Hot [country] babes” as a search term

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Actual Sport Preview

España

What can I tell you about La Roja from La Madre Patria that I haven’t told you before? They are the world #1 while Argentina, the current champion, is #2. The players are not just from Real Madrid and Barcelona either. Quite a few teams from La Liga are represented.

The team is riding a 31 game unbeaten steak in competitive matches and the only blemish during qualifying was a 2-2 tie against Turkey in the last game. Those are the only two goals they allowed in the entire qualification tournament. In short, they are good and are the bettors’ favourites to win the whole thing.

Cape Verde

This is Cape Verde’s first World Cup ever! They are the second-smallest country (by population) ever to qualify for a World Cup. Iceland is the smallest. They beat out Cameroon to finish first in their qualifying group and actually beat them at home, so it wasn’t a fluke at all.

Just because I know Americans are horrible at geography, I will tell you that the country is made up of a group of 10 islands off the coast of Western Africa and south of the Canary Islands. The primary language is Portuguese as it was originally discovered and populated by Portuguese sailors. It’s real name is, as you know from staring at the lady’s private parts in the picture above, Cabo Verde. It is one of the most highly developed countries in all of Africa.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is currently in the middle of trying to buy up all of the world’s sports, including fútbol. The Saudi league is in direct competition with MLS as the retirement league of choice for players that can’t cut it in the European leagues. All you need to know is that Cristiano Ronaldo plays there.

The goal, of course, is for some of that star magic to rub off on the local players and boost the national team. This is the first big test to see if that strategy has paid off. It’s a bold move, Cotton, let’s see if it works out.

Uruguay

The one and only name that anyone except for Don T and the other DFO Latinos knows about Uruguay is Luis Suarez. He is currently enjoying his semi retirement in Miami with Lionel Messi. However, Uruguay is MUCH MORE than just Suarez

They finished fourth in CONMEBOL qualifying behind current world champions Argentina and unexpected upstarts Ecuador and Colombia. Brasil, for your amusement, finished 5th. They fight like hell and no match against them is ever easy.

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Predicted Group Finish

• España
• Uruguay
• Saudi Arabia
• Cabo Verde

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Things to look forward to in the Group Stage

• The España-Uruguay game will likely decide first place in the group. It’s perfect that it’s the last game
• Cabo Verde tying or beating Saudi Arabia in their final group stage game to make history.
• Uruguay determining the third place team by virtue of the goal difference in their matches against Saudi Arabia and Cabo Verde.

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Final Thoughts

It would be really nice if Cabo Verde could get at least a point in their first World Cup. Hopefully, their confidence won’t be shattered after losses to Uruguay and España. The last group game will be highly strategic. Depending on how results pan out in other groups, it may be better to finish in second place in the group instead of first.