Football or as some people call it soccer, is one of the most watched sports in the world. Many people watch football because of the passion that the sport makes them feel. Now imagine that in the World Cup, when your country’s team is playing and representing you, how would you feel? Many people feel more passion and pride when they see their teams qualify for championship events. They are so proud when their country team wins. That is the effect of the World Cup, seeing your own country win against other really good countries’ teams. 

What’s The World Cup?

The World Cup is a football tournament organized by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). This tournament features 32 national men’s teams from 32 countries competing to determine which country is the World Football Champion. Every four years, the World Cup is held in a different location in the world.

Teams Predictions 

Teams that have players that are known to be the best in football history have higher possibilities of winning the World Cup. Chroust, a sports analyst, revealed on June 15 that France has an 18% chance of winning the tournament with Brazil close behind. This shows that France is a competitive team when it comes to the World Cup; they have won 2 times already. This year they have 18% of winning since their team has Kylian Mbappe, who is amazing at his position being a forward. But the team Brazil doesn’t stay behind since they have also won 5 times the World Cup. Chroust also argues that Brazil has moved ahead of France with a tournament-best 16.3% chance of lifting the trophy, and Argentina’s 35-match unbeaten run has them as second favorites at 13.1%. This verifies that Lionel Messi has never disappointed his team Argentina. He has proven many times that he is capable of leading his team to the World Cup. Messi is considered one of the most talented soccer players in the world so there’s no doubt that people believe his team is going to win.

  Groups 

The groups of the World Cup are organized into eight groups which are called groups A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H. Each group has four teams in them. In one group they will go against each other and whichever team wins they pass to the next round. For example, we look at group A which is organized with Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal, and the Netherlands. Qatar will go against Ecuador and Senegal with the Netherlands. If Ecuador and Netherlands win those matches they would go against each other and whoever wins in that final match is the winner of that group and they would go against the other group’s winners until one team wins the whole World Cup.

Some groups have it easier than others. Green explained, “The USMNT will play England, Wales, and Iran in the group stage, but Green expects the American’s youth will help them advance to the knockout round.”  In other words, the USMNT has a chance to be the winner of Group B. They are going against the team Wales first. If they beat them they have a good opportunity to go against England. But England is also a really good team. They are a little stronger than the USMNT. So it will be a tough match to decide who is going to be the winner of Group B. It can be England or USMNT.  “While the Netherlands are the stars of the group and a dark horse team to win the World Cup, Ecuador is a team to watch as their defense can give teams nightmares.” said booth. This means In Group A the Netherlands is the one with a lot of power. They have a big percentage to be the winners of Group A. They have the capacity to go to the quarter-finals. But the Netherlands won’t have it easy since Ecuador’s defense can make it really difficult for them.

Interviews

France and Brazil have bigger possibilities of winning this World cup than any other team. In an interview made on November 28, 2022. Asked former football fans Andres Gonzales and Bounna Yang. The past winners of the world cup are Brazil, Italy, Germany, France, Uruguay, and Argentina. Who do you think is going to be the winner this year? Andres answered “I am between Brazil and France since they both have very good players who play in the big leagues and France was the one that won the last world cup so probably Brazil” Bounna also replied, “Brazil because of how many wins they have had so far”. The interview also asked. Which team do you have your predictions that it’s going to win and why? Andres adds “ France since they won last year and now there are better players who are good and ready for Qatar.” We can see from this interview that most football fans assure that either France or Brazil has a really good possibility of winning. People believe that France is going to win since they have the 2018 world cup and they have a really armed team, while Brazil is the country with the most World Cup wins.

Which teams are in the semi-finals? 

Now that the semi-finals are here there are 4 teams out of the 32  that got the opportunity to get to the semi-finals. The lucky teams are Argentina, Croatia, France, and Morocco. Out of those four teams, only two of them would go to the finals. Argentina and Croatia are playing on December 13 at 1:00 pm and France and Morocco are playing the next day on December 14 at 1:00 pm. Now, which team are you cheering for? Or who do you think is going to win this 2022 World Cup?