Prognostics of the quarter-finals.

Only the top eight  teams of the competition are still running for the cup. They consist of the Netherlands, Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, France, England, Morocco and Portugal. 

The favorite teams ranked by FIFA are Brazil, England, and France. But after seeing all of what happened during this tournament we should be ready for surprises. 

The first quarter-final game that will be played is Croatia against Brazil. It will be played on Friday at 9am. 

Croatia is the old finalist of the last world cup in 2018. So they have a lot of experience, but they never won the world, even though they were so close to the title. The Croatian team is captained by the midfielder Luca Modric number 10. He joined the Croatian national team in 2006 when he was just 21. He is known to be one of the best players ever and won a ballon d’or award.. Luca Modric will bring the mental and positive energy the team needs to resist to the powerful Brazilian team. 

The Brazilian team is the favorite to take the title. On paper, they have all the best players. Their average age is 27.9 years old which means that most of the players are in their peak of skill. The Brazilian team is coached by Tite. He has coached the National team since 2016 which demonstrates that he has a lot of experience. Tite brings a lot of support to the team–in 76 games Brazil only lost 5. While their team is well coached, the squad also possesses top players like Neymar Junior. Neymar is known as one of the best players ever with one of the most admirable skills. As well for Richarlison that already scored 3 goals in three matches. He plays in the Premier League for Tottenham. 

Brazil has so many talented players, but we have seen during this world cup it is not enough to win. Mentality plays a bigger role in those championships. That’s why we have still seen Brazil loose against Cameroon. For the moment the Brazilians have a larger chance to win since Neymar is back on the field and all their players are in good shape. But the Croatians shouldn’t be neglected for their defense that could carry big teams like Belgium and their strong experience and mentality. 

After that, the Netherlands will play Argentina at 1 pm. The other great South-American team known to be Messi’s team is now in the quarter-finals with the aspiration to win their second Championship title. 

At first, the Netherlands squad had never won any championship (but consistently went into the finals). They know what it’s like to play important matches with direct elimination. While they had a weak start, the Netherlands are now completely set and ready for the win. After equalizing to the Equator, they won against Qatar and the United States. After the round 16 against the US, they showed their real personality. All the team could play together with good chemistry, and their top players were in their zone. 

Most fans thought that the Netherlands would still lose against the US, but their head coach Louis Van Gaal woke the players up. After that game we saw a happy and confident team, their coach even announced that they could win their first title. 

All this is great, but will they be able to beat Lionel Messi’s team? Argentina has already won two World Cups. They have the experience and the players and are completely confident after they win against Brazil to reach the Copa American cup. While they are currently the favorite to win that game, it’s obvious that their competition does not occur as the Argentinian predicted. They lost their first game in the group stages against Saudi Arabia which is very bad for a team like Argentina. 

After that, they could win, but it was mostly because of Messi. Argentina did not use the angles and side of the player but mostly used Lionel Messi. That means Netherlands knows how they play and can make sure to block Messi. That caused them to only win 2-1 against Australia during their last game. Even though their last three games, Argentina will have to show more personality to advance their team to the Semi-finals. 

Now it is the second day of the quarter-finals games. On Saturday, Portugal and Morocco play at 9 am. 

Morocco until now was the biggest surprise and they are making history for their country. Nobody had expected to see them go to the quarter-finals because it is the first time the Moroccans have gone so far in the Championship in their whole history. 

With their new head coach Walid Regragui he has revolutionized the team. This squad has already eliminated big teams like Belgium and Spain. It is the team that surprised the whole world, but will they beat Portugal? 

Morocco has shown that even though they did not have the leading possession they made the most decisive actions. For example against Belgium, they only had 35% possession and won 2-0. Then against Spain, they only had 23% possession, but could still block Spain, and then won on penalty kicks. Right now they are not the favorites to win against Portugal, but they will be able to prove the strong mentality and power they have. 

Portugal just finished with an impressive win of 6-1 against Switzerland, but some surprised top players were on the bench. Cristiano Ronaldo, one of soccer’s greatest, was sitting on the bench at the beginning of the game. 

Apparently, Cristiano and his coach were in conflict because he wasn’t starting the game. Issues like that are never good for a team, especially during the World Cup. They have a great chance to continue because the team is strong mentally and really wants to win their first title. It is the last World Cup for the impressive player Cristiano Ronaldo known as CR7. They only lost once during this championship against, but scored a total of 12 goals during the championship. All the players play well together, so the little feud with the forward Cristiano Ronaldo should not affect their game on Saturday. 

Finally, we have a lifelong battle between the rivals France against England.  This will be one of the most unpredictable games, and one of the most wanted. France and England are known for their history, so many soccer fans are really excited to see the results. We are already sure that this game will stay in the history of soccer. 

Until now, England never lost to France in the world cup, but this doesn’t prove that they have the lead. 

England had a good start in the world cup and never lost any game yet. They won a couple of games by far, and their worst game was against the United States where they tied 0-0. England is the third team to have the most possession with a total of 64.3% of the time with the ball. 

With the income of Jude Bellingam he made the balance into the team to bring every win needed. England’s defense can suffer against the French player Mbappé. Killian Mbappé scored the most goals in this championship with a total of five goals. Defending this player will be complicated for the English defenders. 

Is France ready? France only lost one game with their sub players against Tunisia, so the French shouldn’t be worried about that game, but are the French ready to win the World Cup once again? 

After all what happened to their players they are doing much better than expected.  Everyone thought that France would have the Champion curse, which means that the old winners usually lose during the group phases. Surprisingly it did not occur to France, they could break the curse and pass all the way to the quarter-finals. Lots of their top players got injured and apparently one of the players was in a feud with the top player Kylian Mbappé. All this was not great right before the tournament, so the head coach called up a lot of new young players. All these new young athletes have done great until now and carried every game. Even without Mbappé, France would have difficulty if they deserve their place in this championship. 

The fans can say what they want, but this world is very unpredictable. We saw a lot of small teams winning against high ranked teams. Those last days of the World Cup will be very intense. Nobody knows what could happen. There will be a lot of emotions and it’ll be full of surprises.