FIFA: World Cup 2018

@2.25 Harry Kane Top scorer in England looks value for me. Raheem Sterling not that great for scoring and most of the time he makes opportunity with his dribble. Dele Alli could score, but top scorer? I don't think so at all. I think the main forward for England should be Harry Kane and because of that the other opponent Jamie Vardy should get less more minutes than him. Don't see any other real opponents besides what I mentioned.

ARSENAL MIDFIELDER GRANIT XHAKA A DOUBT FOR WORLD CUP WITH SWITZERLAND DUE TO KNEE INJURY

2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – ENGLAND NATIONAL TEAM



The England national team are looking to right the wrongs of an over a decade of horrible ends to their tournaments including such as 4-1 defeat to Germany in 2010, missing out on knockouts in 2014, losing to Iceland in the 2016 Euros. Led by Gareth Southgate, England have taken a lot of new breed of players to this world cup in hopes of having a good run at the world cup for the first time in what seems a very long time. England have taken young players such as Alexander-Arnold, Jordan Pickford, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford who will be willing to prove the whole world what they’re made of. England will be led by their new captain Harry Kane who had his career high season in goals once again hitting the net THIRTY TIMES in the Premier League and he will be hoping to put the whole world on notice during his first world cup of his career. England won’t only have to rely on Harry Kane because they have a bunch of other good players such as Dele Alli, Raheem Sterling, Kyle Walker, Jordan Henderson, Jamie Vardy and many more who have all had great seasons and will be carrying the nations shoulders. There has been a few controversial selections such as Burnley defenders Tarkowski and Mee both missing out after having an incredible season for Cahill who was terrible for Chelsea, or Jack Wilshere missing out after having what was probably his healthiest and best season for Arsenal while Adam Lallana made it after being injury prone all year and completely out of form, but still with a mix of top quality players and very good youth England will be expected to have a world cup that their fans can remember. Nobody expects them to win, but they simply cannot afford to have anything similar to the 2016 Euros. Quarter Finals will be a minimum.

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FIFA WORLD CUP RUSSIA 2018 MAIN PAGE



Also the main FIFA World Cup 2018 Russia page for all who are interested in this event. Predictions, betting picks, preview and more related to World Cup. Everything in one place.

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2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – BRAZIL NATIONAL TEAM



The Brazilians have massive expectations this year at the world cup. After a disastrous world cup 4 years on their home soil conceding 7 in the semi final, Brazilians will be looking for redemption and nobody other than Neymar will be wanting to help and lead Brazil to the glory after having to miss out the semis to a back injury the last time round. Brazil have a much improved squad, with the emergence of young players such as Marquinhos, Casemiro, Coutinho, Jesus, Firmino. These guys will be looking to provide Brazil something they haven’t had 4 years ago, the stability in defense and midfield, while their strikers issues have been sorted which was their main problem 4 years ago as Fred was just horrific. Brazil love to play attacking football, everybody tends to go forward even their defenders which normally leaves gaps in the back sometimes and that means whenever Brazil play we can expect fun entertaining games and for betting people you should always try and look for bets that have over 2.5 or 3.5 goals totals before every Brazil game. Brazil are one of the top 2 favorites at this world cup and with the nation having high expectations, they will surely be put under immense pressure, the question is how will they deal with it? Will they crumble like in 2014, or will they bounce back?

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2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – GERMANY NATIONAL TEAM



Germany are the most successful national team in Europe with 4 World Cups and 3 european cups who will be looking to add more to their collection. This is their 19th entry in the world cup, only missing out on two being the 1930 and 1950 because they didn’t enter and got banned from the other. Germany are one of the best if not the best team in the world and have an unbelievable depth as we saw last year in the confederations cup when they won it with the mix of their B/C team players. Germany are phenomenal all around, coached by Joachim Low they love to play attacking football, they’re great in possession they have two of the best passers in the world in Ozil and Kroos, furthermore their defence is very solid, but the question mark this year is their striker position as Miroslav Klose will not take part in world cups for Germany anymore. Their replacement is Timo Werner who’s had an average season for RB Leipzig and he will have to show up and finish his chances for Germany, they also have Thomas Muller who is known for scoring goals at the world cup scoring 9 in 2 tournaments. Also their goalkeeping situation is unclear as their main man Manuel Neuer is fighting to be fit for the world cup and nobody really knows if he’ll be able to perform and if he does then how will he perform? I mean rust is still a thing and I can see Marc Andre ter Stegen getting an opportunity to start for Germany, another great goalkeeper who plays for Barcelona and has faced pressure before but not like this. There are definitely question marks about the German team as great as they are, a mix of young players with world cup winners will definitely be fun to watch. Germans have always been top contenders and it’s no different this year.

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BEST XI MISSING FROM WORLD CUP,

What do you think about the fact that we are not going to see these players in their national teams this summer?

It's always sad to see than kind of players didn't get chances but every World Cup would be the same. Sometimes there is more talent then there is a spot, sometimes coaches and federations for some reasons don't want to invite players.

2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – BELGIUM NATIONAL TEAM



Belgium are currently experiencing the highest level of football they’ve ever produced with world class players such as Eden Hazard, De Bruyne, Mertens, Vertonghen and many. This is Belgium’s best chance to win the world cup they’ve ever had due to the fact that this golden generation are all in their primes with most of them coming into this world cup in fantastic form. Their coached by Roberto Martinez and they love playing attacking football, with little magicians such as Hazard and Mertens alongside one of the best passers in the world KDB and a great striker in Romelu Lukaku. These four danger men will cause a lot of problems for opposition defences and have the capabilities of breaking down any defence. Belgium really don’t have many weaknesses in their squad wherever you look, their back 3 is absolutely top class, they have a mix of strong and creative midfielders, the only negative might be their full backs they do lack depth there and they will most likely use Meunier and Carrasco as wing backs but other than that they’ve got a pretty flawless squad. The biggest controversy about their world cup squad is the exclusion of a top class midfielder Radja Nainggolan who was coming off of one of his best seasons of his career with Roma and instead of him players such as Witsel, Fellaini, Januzaj and a few others who you wouldn’t put in the squad before Nainggolan got selected and that made many people angry although everyone knows his relationship with the coach is damaged, surely Martinez could have put that aside and include one of his best players? It could be a costly mistake for sure.

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2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – ARGENTINA NATIONAL TEAM



Argentina are coming off of a very tough qualifying campaign, just about making it into the tournament. Argentina are one of the main contenders to win the world cup because of their main man, the best player in the world in my eyes Lionel Messi. Messi has single handedly took Argentina to the world cup and will hope to continue to do so at the world cup, but of course someone else will have to help him. Argentina have an incredible amount of attacking talent with players such as Messi, Aguero, Di Maria, Dybala, Higuain, but they can’t seem to put it together for a few years now. A prime example of Argentina’s attacking problems was 4 years ago where they only scored 2 goals in the knockouts and although they made the Final, it really wasn’t in the Argentinian type of way, they scraped results out. For the attacking talent that they have, it’s really weird on why they struggle to score goals, but they’ll have to sort it out for this world cup. Argentina’s biggest question mark will be the defense and the goalkeeper and although they seem to always put it together defensively for the past few years, it will always be a question. Their goalkeeper problems are probably the biggest concern overall as they have a backup Chelsea keeper as a number one option, the 36 year old Willy Caballero. Argentina are coached by Jorge Sampaoli, he loves to play high press attacking football which should hopefully get Argentina to play exciting football unlike they’ve done recently, he is a successful coach, had a great run with Chile taking Brazil to penalties in R16 in 2014 and winning copa America in 2015. Only bit of controversy with Argentina would be the exclusion of Icardi who’s been probably their best striker during the season, but still that doesn’t change the fact that Argentina are full of threat.

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2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – SPAIN NATIONAL TEAM



Spain are coming into this world cup as one of the favourites to win it in people’s eyes and they are looking to bounce back from what has been quite an awful past 4 years on the big stage being eliminated in the groupstages in the world cup in 2014 and R16 in the Euros. Spain have a new generation coming through into this world cup alongside some of the experienced players who are world cup and European champions that are still here. Spain have what I would probably call the best and the most deep midfield in the world, they have great depth in defense and goalkeeper positions, but their striking options are slightly limited with Costa there, but alongside they Costa they have Rodrigo and Aspas who really are unproven for Spain and the same Diego Costa hasn’t really done anything for Spain other than flop the last world cup, but he is a world class striker and he can bounce back from what happened 4 years back. There were some surprising exclusions such as Marcos Alonso missing our for Monreal although Alonso was put in the premier league’s team of the year as a LB, also Morata missing out was quite surprising to some although he had a poor season but he’s proven for Spain, and Bellerin missing out too, but other than that there really wasn’t anything wrong with the selections and even these controversies aren’t that much of a problem. Spain are coached by Julen Lopetegui, a manager who has a great track record with the Spain youth teams winning a couple European cups, his only stint at a club level was with Porto where it didn’t go really well, however he did do a great job with Spain during the qualifiers, but the real test for him hasn’t really come yet as a Spain manager and the world cup will show what he’s capable of. With a midfield that Spain has, we can probably expect high possession and them working to break down the doors of defences with their great ability to pass the ball and unlock other teams. They’ll probably have 65-70% possession most games and they should be an exciting team to watch because of the talent that they have.


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Ibrahimovic is also missing despite he already claimed to know how the help his team... Another missing player is Alex Sandro from Juventus which in my opinion is a way better left-fullback than Alonso

Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah has told Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi he is on the road to recovery following a shoulder injury in the Champions League final.

"The President was reassured on the health condition of the player 'Mohamed Salah', who affirmed that his condition is improving notably and that he is on his way to recovery, god willing," presidency spokesman Bassam Radi said on Saturday.

(CNN)There may never be another Belgian World Cup team this loaded with star power -- or lacking in confidence -- with team captain Eden Hazard capturing both qualities going into Russia 2018.


"We'll go there to try to win the World Cup," the 27-year-old Chelsea midfielder boldly told CNN Sport in an exclusive interview. "To go and give 100%, that's what we have to do.
"In football you never know, but I feel that we have a good team, good players," added the 2015 PFA Player of the Year. "We have experience now on the team.

2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – PORTUGAL NATIONAL TEAM



Portugal are going into the world cup attempting to be the 4th nation to be the holders of both World cup and the European Championship others being France Spain and Germany. Portugal have a top 2 player in the world in Cristiano Ronaldo who’s surrounded by a lot of veteran players such as Quaresma, Pepe, Bruno Alves, Moutinho, but they’ve also got a great mix of younger generation with players such as Bernardo Silva, Gelson Martins, Goncalo Guedes and many more. Portugal are as I’ve said the current European champions and are coached by Fernando Santos who likes to start everything from a defensive point of view. If you’re watching Portugal, don’t expect it to be pretty football as we’ve all seen in the euros when they weren’t a team that would create a chance after chance, but they were so well tactically drilled that it made them become champions, furthermore in the Confed Cup last year, Portugal didn’t play the most exciting football either which is why we shouldn’t expect them to run riot when it comes to the world cup. We can expect them to play defensive against the bigger nations and then when they come up against worse nations we shouldn’t expect them to batter those teams, it’s most likely going to be a 1-0 or a 2-0 game when they face someone weaker because Portugal simply aren’t a goal scoring machine even with Ronaldo. There wasn’t much controversy concerning team selection, although Nani and Renato Sanches aren’t there this year, but their failure to succeed at the club level in the past couple years really led to them not being selected which is fair enough, especially when there’s better players in their positions now.

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Gareth Southgate has revealed Marcus Rashford has sustained a "slight knock" in training ahead of the World Cup.

Rashford suffered the injury in England's final training session on Monday, the day before the squad set off for Russia.

The Three Lions landed in St Petersburg on Tuesday afternoon before travelling on to their World Cup training base in Repino.

The injury to Rashford, who was named man of the match in England's final warm-up game against Costa Rica on Thursday, is not thought to be serious and his place in the squad is not under threat.

When can VAR be used?
The VAR team will constantly check for 'clear and obvious errors' related to four match-changing situations:

Goals and offences leading up to a goal
Penalty decisions and offences leading up to a penalty
Direct red card incidents only
Mistaken identity

2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – FRANCE NATIONAL TEAM



Once again France national team is entering World Cup as one of the favourites to go all the way. Entering this tournament France have a massive monkey on their back to perform well given the way this team played in the last few tournaments. After winning World Cup on their home soil in 1998 they failed to get out of the group stages in Japan 2002 followed by a loss in the Final against Italy in 2006. In 2010 French national team had a disaster of a tournament to say the least… that tournament had absolutely everything… What could have gone wrong, did! From players v players fights, players v fans fights, manager vs player fight, players refusing to play which led to France failing to qualify from group stages, after all that players like Nasri and Evra were suspended for few years and were not allowed to play for France. 2014 World Cup in Brazil was the one that got away in a lot of French fans eyes, luck was against them when it came to a draw having to play hosts Brazil in QF which led to their exit from the tournament with super talented team who were one of the favourites to go all the way. This time around France is bringing a very talented squad to Russia with young, quick, technical, smart and experienced players covering the 23-man squad. This team is covered with young players who already are champions for their clubs, Umtiti with Barcelona, Varane with Real Madrid, Kante with Chelsea, Tolisso with Bayern, Pogba with Manchester United, Mbappe with PSG, Griezmann with Atletico Madrid, Fekir with Lyon, Matuidi with Juventus, Lemar with Monaco. The balance is just perfect, for once it seems like there is quality players that cover every single position on the pitch. One of their best defenders over the last 5~ years Koscielny could not make the squad because of an injury while playing for Arsenal which is a big loss, but at the same time this could lead to a perfect partnership between young guns Varane and Umtiti. With players like Pogba, Mbappe, Griezmann, Dembele, Fekir, Lemar, Thauvin, Griezmann and Giroud France will be very dangerous going forward and with defensive line with Lloris, Umtiti, Varane, Pavard, Rami, Kimpembe, Kante, Matuidi they will be very hard to score against so for example in the group stages were they have to play weaker teams - Australia, Peru and Denmark Bets like: “France Win to Nil” – Bet365 or “French team total goals over 1.5/2.0/2.5” – Bet365/Pinnacle could be a very good choice because I see a lot of these games finishing with France victories 2-0, 3-0 or 4-0. Going forward oppositions in R16/QF/SF/Final will be much better so I expect French defence to stay strong, but their scoring to go down to 1 or 2 goals per game so at that stage I would be looking at Bets like: “Under 2.5/3.0/3.5” – Bet365/Pinnacle or “There will be 2 or 3 goals scored” – Bet365.

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Julen Lopetegui has been sacked as Spain boss just two days of their opening World Cup fixture.

The Spanish Football Federation made its announcement at around 11am on Wednesday ahead of a news conference at which president Luis Rubiales said: "We have been forced to dispense with the national coach. We wish him the greatest of luck."

Wow, it is hard to understand such decision... What do you think guys? How this will impact the performance of Spain national team?

The worst decision ever. One of the top teams and contenders for the World Cup now with big questions. I really can imagine a lot of frustration from Spain players and it could harm them during the championship.