TRIO REPRESENT VALUE
Mike Holden

When I started out on this series some 10,000 words ago, I declared having no pre-conceived ideas about how I thought each nation would perform at Germany 2006 and I vowed only to draw conclusions on such matters once I had built up a comprehensive profile of the various characteristics that I considered to be of most importance when analysing each team.

The first half of that bargain wasn't strictly true because nobody can ever be totally objective and go into these situations completely with an open mind but I'm happy to report that the few pre-conceived opinions I was holding have, for the most part, been blown out of the water by new brainwaves over the last few weeks.

Had I gone with my instincts then and not delved deeper into my own rationale, I would now be holding ante-post bets that I no longer want.

Take Serbia & Montenegro, for example. Like every man and his dog, it seems, I took one look at the way in which they had qualified and automatically earmarked them for a successful tournament.

However, as I stated towards the end of my piece on psychology, clean sheets against the likes of San Marino, Bosnia, Lithuania and Belgium over an 18-month period are one thing but shutting out Holland, Argentina and the Ivory Coast in the space of 10 days is quite another and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the attention they have drawn to themselves ahead of this tournament creates a burden of expectation they cannot live up to.

Besides, even if Ilija Petkovic's men do escape from Group C, history suggests they will struggle to progress much further having emerged from the dreaded 'Group of Death'.

The mental consequences of being drawn in such a tough group can drain too much from the tank ahead of the second round.

For me, the 'Group of Death' is any two from four with a slight leaning towards Holland to top the section but the cut-throat nature of that opening schedule could leave lasting psychological scars on whichever two nations do qualify.

Some will no doubt point to the class that Argentina have at their disposal but, for my money, they are nothing other than a collection of great players capable of producing flashes of brilliance with little else of substance to add to their claim of landing a third title. And their ageing defence could wilt if it comes under any kind of sustained pressure.

Then there's Paraguay, a nation that I thought was being foolishly dismissed simply because they had been drawn alongside England and Sweden.

Their record at the previous two World Cups suggested they were more than capable of stifling both of their European opponents to leave themselves with a target score to achieve in the final game against Trinidad & Tobago, just five days after the Caribbean debutants had played the most eagerly anticipated game in their history.

But the Paraguayans lack of height at the back and vulnerability at set pieces has now ensured that I'll politely refuse the 6/4 quotes on them to qualify and keep a watching brief.

One unfancied nation that I do reckon will cause a stir in the group stages is Tunisia.

This will be their third successive appearance at the World Cup with a host of players who can draw upon the experience of the previous two tournaments and they now have a better sense of direction under the guidance of Roger Lemerre.

The Euro 2000 winning coach has brought greater discipline to their game and their African Nations Cup success in 2004 has instilled greater confidence within a team that boasts an average appearance make-up of 53 caps per player.

Victory over Saudi Arabia in their opening game would leave the Tunisians in touching distance of the second round and the questions marks hanging over Spain, in terms of unity and preparation, and the Ukraine, in terms of pressure, might provide enough grounds for the Africans to see the job through one way or another.

Meanwhile, the one team to be taken on in the group betting 'to qualify' markets is the Czech Republic. Their lack of experience against non-European opposition could provide a rude awakening when they face USA and Ghana in their opening two games and it's debatable how effective they can be playing three games in 10 days with five key players the wrong side of 30.

In the outright market, the first conundrum to be solved is whether or not Brazil represent value at less than 3/1 because there is little doubt they tick the right boxes and are worthy favourites.

It has been a source of some frustration that, try as I might, I've been unable to unearth a string of reasons for taking the Brazilians on but I will be stubbornly ignoring them in my ante-post portfolio nonetheless.

As strong as they are, there does appear to be the odd chink in the armour. The cavalier nature of their full-backs Cafu and Roberto Carlos isn't suited to the four-man defence that Carlos Alberto Parreira swears by and it could frequently leave the central pairing Lucio and Juan isolated against teams who are dangerous on the counter.

And should Brazil run into trouble at any stage, needing to change the rhythm of a game, I'm not entirely convinced that Parreira is capable enough of finding the answers. This may sound like a ludicrous accusation to direct at a man who coached Brazil to glory at USA 94 but football has moved on over the last 12 years and I'm not sure Parreira has moved with it as quickly as most of his peers at this competition.

In my opinion, Brazil's skinny price is, quite frankly, an insult to the unpredictable nature of The Beautiful Game and the serious danger that other challengers pose, especially those in Europe, so I'm quite prepared to look elsewhere in search of value.

And value is exactly how I would describe France at 14/1.

Throughout this series, the French have been short-listed positively in all aspects, even if they haven't necessarily provided a strong enough case to be detailed in the write-up of each category.

However, they have experience in abundance with a host of players who have been playing together - and winning trophies together - for the last eight years, their preparation is bound to be better than it ever could have been four years ago and they're under a limited amount of pressure given that they've been widely written off on the back of their unconvincing qualifying campaign.

Furthermore, it's difficult not to take notice of how kind the draw has been to them. I usually try to guard against mapping out the later rounds in tournaments of this nature because the group stages very rarely turn out as you would expect but I'm also struggling to come up with a scenario where the French would struggle to reach the quarter-finals.

In fact, they could quite easily find themselves in a situation where they haven't broken sweat to make the last eight and require only three big performances to lift the trophy.

With Brazil and Argentina both shorter than they should be, it stands to reason that France are not the only nation I consider to represent value and I must admit to being attracted by the prices of Portugal and Mexico.

They should both be expected to come through the same group with plenty in reserve for the knockout stages after games against Iran and Angola and my thinking, as detailed above, is that their greater energy levels should give them both an advantage over whoever they face from the 'Group of Death'.

Should this turn out to be the case, you've got yourself two astonishing prices with Portugal at 25/1 and Mexico at 60/1. If either of them could hark back to a World Cup win 20 years ago, like Argentina can, as if that matters, they would both currently be trading at half the price given their relative strengths going into this tournament.

And it's not only previous world champions they measure favourably with. Spain are continually under-priced as a result of the nation's reputation in club football but they have never been able to translate that presence onto the international stage.

It's now 56 years since the Spaniards progressed beyond the quarter-finals of the World Cup, yet they can be laid at under 20/1 despite being ill-prepared, inexperienced and coached by a man who, by his own admission, has no clear idea of what he's doing.

It goes without saying that England and Italy have realistic chances but both nations have a habit of undoing all their own hard work by not knowing whether to stick or twist when in command of crucial matches and they continually seem unable to step up to the plate when it matters in a penalty shoot-out.

There's no denying that the circumstances surrounding their elimination from tournaments over the past decade or so have been unfortunate but one cannot help wondering whether so many hard luck stories are more than just coincidence and their relative prices are probably a fair reflection of their true chances.

All of which leaves the hosts, Germany. They haven't featured prominently in any of the angles I've covered because of the uncertainty that always surrounds a team that hasn't played a competitive fixture for the last two years but they should certainly be considered as live contenders because of the obvious advantages of being hosts and I would be inclined to include them in my ante-post portfolio as a saver.

Group betting:

LAY Argentina to qualify from Group C @ 1.36

LAY Czech Rep to qualify from Group E @ 1.54

BACK Tunisia to qualify from Group H @ 2.9

Outright market:

LAY Brazil @ 3.75

LAY Argentina @ 11.0

LAY Holland @ 18.0

LAY Spain @ 19.0

BACK France @ 15

BACK Portugal @ 27

BACK Mexico @ 60

BACK Germany (saver) @ 9.6.

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Bettingzone.co.uk. With permission.