Now that the World Cup is nearing the end, the time is right for some retrospective scrutiny of WCH’s pre-tournament views. Featured below is a small selection of the things we got right!

1. Pauleta
Herr Hippo informed us that Portugal striker Pauleta is an overrated player who is incapable of setting a big international tournament alight. Pauleta was widely tipped to do well in Germany having scored plenty of goals in the qualifiers - but he was also touted to do well at Euro 2004 and failed to score a single goal at the Portugal-hosted tournament. Pauleta is the type of player who has the capacity to score against small nations, but on a bigger stage he is exposed as a plodding, predictable and guileless centre-forward. He scored a lucky early goal against outsiders Angola in the first group game, but has failed to find the net again at this World Cup, which demonstrates that he is the ultimate flat-track bully.

2. Australia
We predicted that the Socceroos would have a big tournament, and they were the most organised, talented and entertaining of the less fancied nations in Germany. They proved that they were a well-drilled unit in their match against Brazil, with the central defensive triumvirate of Neill, Popovic and Moore looking particularly impressive. Australia weren’t just set up to defend against Brazil, however, and could have levelled the game when a goal down - but Kewell missed a sitter. Italy required a dubious injury time penalty to beat them in the second-round – and Australia would have fancied their chances against the perennial shoot-out chokers if they’d kept it level through 120 mins. Guus Hiddink certainly brought the best out of Australia and imaginatively resolved their defensive frailties. Lucas Neill, who plays at right-back for Blackburn, was recast as a centre-back and was one of the best defenders in Germany. Such demonstrable tactical nous and man-management skills suggest it’s a shame that Hiddink isn’t the new England manager!

3. Bobby Zamora
Way back in February Herr Hippo sent me on a scouting mission to watch Arsenal v West Ham. The WCH report stated that West Ham striker Bobby Zamora was quick, strong and industrious and should be considered for England. Whilst this suggestion was a bit of a rash longshot, subsequent events proved that it wasn’t such a wild proposal after all. Too much has been written about the selection of Sven’s forwards and the inclusion of Theo Walcott. I therefore don’t want to dwell on it too much, but with Owen and Rooney unfit, it was surely Sven’s major folly of the summer to supplement his strike force with an untried teenager - never mind only taking four forwards. So it transpired that even a randomly selected English Premiership striker would have been a useful addition to England’s World Cup squad.

4 & 5. We also thought that Switzerland would finish top of Group G, and that Owen Hargreaves might not be as rubbish as everyone was making out. That’s  five things we got right – almost one per month!

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 8th, 2006 at 12:05 am and is filed under Preview & Predictions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Return to home page.