World Cup Countdown - Group C

Argentina - Holland – Ivory Coast – Serbia and Montenegro

This is bound to be labelled the Group of Death, for the reason that any two of these four has the potential to go through to the last sixteen. The bookies will have Argentina and Holland as the two teams to qualify. This is hard to argue as they are the teams with the pedigree here and both managed to qualify in some style. But can you really rule out the Ivory Coast, the best team to qualify from Africa, or Serbia who only conceded one goal throughout qualification

The key to this group will be who can break who down. Argentina have a relatively poor record against African teams and will not relish the thought of facing the Ivory Coast first up. This could well be a game decided by who the referee sides with, if Drogba can get away with what he does in the Premiership he will prove to be a big threat to them. Holland will not look forward to playing Serbia either as they will have to attack for most of the game and hope to break them down. The interesting games will come towards the end of the group stages when sides will have to play to win. It will be interesting to see the defensively minded Serbs go out on the attack.

I think that we will see a big casualty in this group and only one of Holland and Argentina will progress. The other will go home and the Ivory Coast will carry the flag for African football into the last sixteen. The tough task will be to predict which one it will be. One thing is for sure the Argentina vs Holland game has the potential to be the best game of the group stages. I have this sneaking suspicion that Argentina will have too much for everyone and Holland will do their usual implosion trick. The group will end up looking like this

1. Argentina
2. Ivory coast
3. Holland
4. Serbia