URUGUAY

The first ever FIFA World Cup was staged on Uruguayan soil in 1930. La Celeste (means “Sky Blue” in English), as Uruguayan national team is called, won that very first World Cup beating continental rivals Argentina 4–2 in the finals.

20 years later in Brazil 1950, Uruguay won their second World Cup trophy by beating then host Brazil 2–1 in the final at Estadio Maracana, in the most attended World Cup game ever. La Celeste also boasts of 15 Copa América successes. They had appeared in the World Cup 13 times and will be making their 14th appearance in Russia and in Group A alongside Russia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Currently ranked 17th in the latest FIFA ranking, the South American side qualified 2nd behind Brazil in the South American zone.
Coached by Oscar Tabarez, a pragmatic and defensive-minded coach who believes once your defence is strong you are good to go. Uruguay doesn’t play creative football and are used to scoring few goals.

One match that Africans will never forget in a hurry was the Ghana vs Uruguay quarterfinal at South Africa 2010. Ghana was on the verge of making the first African semi-final appearance at the Mundial when Luis Suarez punched out a goal-bound ball. The referee awarded a penalty and gave Suarez marching order. All that a young Asamoah Gyan needed to do was to score the 120th-minute penalty and send Africa to the semis. He blew it the chance and Ghana lost to Uruguay on penalty shootouts.
Uruguay boasts of arrays of star players. The country’s leading goal scorer with 50 goals Luis Suarez, captain Diego Godin, Sebastian Coates, Fernando Muslera, Gaston Ramirez, Mathias Vecino, Diego Laxait Edison Cavani and Rodrigo Bantancur among others.

Our experts at Jolloftips strongly believe that they will top this group with ease. Quater finals should also be within their reach.

2018 World Cup Team Analysis

IRAN

Team Melli as the Iranian national team is popularly called will be making their fifth World Cup appearance. They participated in 1978, 1998, 2006 and 2014 FIFA World Cups and have only won one World Cup match. A 2–1 victory over the USA in France 98. Coached by Carlos Queiroz, Iran had a great qualification campaign, aside from Russia who qualified for the World Cup automatically and Brazil the first team to qualify, Iran was the next early bird. They played 10 matches unbeaten in the Group A of the Asian qualifying zone.

The question is will their near perfect qualifying campaign translate into a surprise superlative performance at the Mundial? with Portugal and Spain in the same group, we don’t see such upset being created.

Iran boasts of a relatively young team and a few players in Europe like the 23 years old Sardar Azmoun who plies his trade at Rubin Kazan, Russia and Askan Dejagah who plays for English second tier called Championship side, Nottingham Forest.

We don’t see Iran pulling any surprises. So they will just go to Russia have fun and bow out after the group.

PORTUGAL

The Portuguese have made six previous appearances at the World Cup, finishing third in their first outing in 1966. Their most recent best performance was a 4th place finish in 2006. Surprisingly, the then Portuguese team called the Golden Generation did not win any trophy at the senior level, the era had big names like Luis Figo, Pauleta, Ricardo Carvalho, Rui Costa, Deco, Simao. Their best performance in that era was a Euro final at home soil in 2004 losing to Greece the surprise package of that tournament.
However, that era was replaced by another era as is natural with human affairs and it was until 2016 that they won the Euro for the first time.

With a formidable squad coached by Fernando Santos and captained by current world best player, Cristiano Ronaldo, who has won 138 caps and scored 71goals for the national team(the highest by any Portuguese player). The star-studded European Champions also have players like Bernardo Silva, William, Bruno Alves, Nani, the man that scored the Euro-winning goal Eder, Ricardo Quaresma, Adrien Silva, Andre Gomes and so on. With Pepe who is getting old, Jose Fonte and Cedric at the back line we think that might be their undoing. For Portugal to succeed they should ensure the game doesn’t revolve around Ronaldo.

They will be competing in Group B alongside Spain, Iran and Morocco. They will definitely make it to the round of 16. but might finish behind Spain

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