Group A, Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal and The Netherlands (Holland)

As with many things in life, the first time is always the hardest and so with this first group preview. Wherever you digest your content for this world cup, people are going to be banging on about how surreal this tournament is because of its timing and location. They will also be pontificating at great length about all the underlying issues which are being "sports washed" by the extravagance on display. 

There, I have done it and I will try not to do it again. It is not that I do not care, but all those who claim they are going to boycott the tournament are really just windbags. If one likes football, then one is going to follow even if surreptitiously, so let's not pretend. 

We are here to concentrate on the football which we are hopefully about to enjoy and if necessary, can return to the other issues after the tournament. (I know by then nobody will care)

We will start with the hosts, and we will not beat about the bush, the only way Qatar would ever qualify for a world cup is by being the host nation. Camel racing is the most popular sport in Qatar historically. An interesting point to note is that there is no jockey sitting on the back of the camel, The camel has a robot jockey which includes a speaker for the owner to shout their instructions to the camel. (I kid you not). The spectators drive along the side of the track in their air-conditioned SUV's honking their horns incessantly. Lots of money changes hands on the outcome of the races. Only Arabs are allowed to participate, no foreign owners.

You may have guessed that I do not have much to say about Qatari football, however I do know the following. They are a very organized team, but their main rivals are Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Any small country in a footballing sense, where the majority of the squad is based domestically is generally at a disadvantage.  I think that they will be hard to score against but feel that they will find it very difficult to score themselves and the other teams in their group are all very experienced and on a higher level than Qatar are.

The opening game usually features the reigning champions from the last world cup, but due to financial contributions, I mean considerations, that is not the case this time and Qatar will face off against Ecuador, this coming Sunday at 16:00 GMT.  Now, even those of the readers whose knowledge of football is limited will perhaps be aware that this is not the game the world has been waiting four years for. 

Stories abound of how the Qataris have tried to bribe the Ecuadorans, with millions of dollars to throw the game. I feel that it is mostly clickbait, but you never know.

Ecuador is on the Northwestern coast of South America, to help you locate it. One departs from there to get to the Galapagos Islands. the place which helped Darwin create his theory of Natural selection of the species. 

The following two paragraphs were written before the news broke on Friday that Sadio Mane, the Senegalese striker is out of the tournament due to injury. I have left them in and will put an addendum afterwards.

In footballing terms, Ecuador are one of those nations in S America who are interchangeable at world cups.  There is Brazil and Argentina and recently Uruguay and then the rest. Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Paraguay and Colombia, all have featured in recent world cups but have never achieved very much. They are technically gifted as with most South American teams and it is probably a tossup between them and the next team, we will mention, that being Senegal, as to whom will join the Netherlands in advancing to the last sixteen.

Senegal is known as the Lions of Teranga as opposed to the indomitable lions of Cameroon, they are the current champions of Africa, their squad is sprinkled with players from the top leagues in Europe and includes Sadio Mane who after an illustrious career at Liverpool winning everything on offer moved to Bayern Munchen for a fresh challenge. There was a recent scare that he would miss the world cup due to injury, but it looks like he is fit, and his availability tends to lead me to think that they will prevail and move onto the next stage. Senegal advanced once before in 2002 after famously beating France, who were the holders, in one of the most exciting opening games on record.  See the highlights below

The group is rounded out by the Orangemen of the Netherlands. The Netherlands is somewhat of an enigma when it comes to their footballing history, they often flatter to deceive. In the 1970's they were exponents of what became known as total football, a style where all the players on the pitch, excluding the goalkeeper, could interchange positions with one another without breaking the structure of the team.

They reached the final on three occasions and lost them all, in 1974 to West Germany, in 1978 to the Argentina of the military Junta and in 2010 to Spain.

Here is how they lost in 1974,

They are on the up once again, however, the trouble with the Dutch is that are unreliable. Despite that, they should have enough to win this group and go through with Senegal as I wrote above. Unfortunately, the news broke on Friday that Senegal will be missing their star player due to injury, therefore I now feel that Ecuador will advance to the knock out stages from second place.

Next up will be the preview for Group B, an inherently more fascinating group and not because of the fact that EnGerLand are in the group. Check in after the Qatar Ecuador game to see why.