Group F, The Maple Leafs (Canada), The Atlas Lions (Morocco), Croatia and the Brussel Sprouts (Belgium)

This preview was written before the first round of games in this group were played. I have not changed anything, despite what actually happened in those games.

The blog will be back on Tuesday as we approach the deciding games in the group stages. Enjoy the weekend and see you then.

This is yet another group with two teams who should stroll through and two who, on paper at least, are just making up the numbers. This is something which will become even more of a problem in four years' time when the tournament is expanded to forty-eight teams. There will be even more teams who should not be in purely on the basis of not being at a high enough level of football to compete with the big boys.

Those of you old enough to remember the republic of Yugoslavia, which was dissolved in 1992, will know that Croatia was one of the components of that state. Yugoslavia was good at sport, both football and basketball and Serbia and Croatia, as they are now known, provided the bulk of the players for those teams. Since they split into two nations, it has become very apparent that Croatia was blessed with the better footballers than the Serbians, who as I will point out in their group preview are not the type of people you would want to me in a dark alley.

Once Croatia had been established and invited to join FIFA, they soon carried on with their proud tradition of success in international football by finishing third in the 1998 world cup in France and of course more recently losing to the Les Bleus in the final four years ago after coming from behind to beat EnGerLand in the semifinal.

The Brussel sprouts of Belgium have been the team that has most flattered to deceive in recent years. They had a golden generation of talent, and yet, have nothing to show for it, which brings into question their mentality on the big occasion. Who knows, perhaps this time round with less expected from them, they may finally fulfil all that promise.

In the last world cup, they gave a glimpse of their ability when they knocked out Brasil, before losing to the Froggies in the semifinal.

The most interesting team in this group are the Maple Leafs from Canada, this is only their second appearance in a final's tournament, and we do not really know what to expect from them, so perhaps it will be best to expect the unexpected. They qualified in first place from a group which included beating Mexico for the first time in over twenty years.

However, there has been some disquiet since qualification with a number of friendly games canceled due to various reasons. They have a few young players who have found their way into top flight European football and this has definitely helped Canadian football to progress. I do not think that they will bother the Brussels or Croatians, but as with Japan, it would be nice if they did manage to pull off a surprise result.

We close out this preview with the Atlas Lions of Morocco. After what we have seen from both Saudi Arabia and Tunisia so far, I should probably hedge my bets, but that is not how this works. The Arab teams have immense pride and will give their all, but in reality, that will probably not be enough to see them advance. The aim will be to avoid humiliation and they are more than capable of achieving that.