World Cup 2010 Preview: Group D and Group E Predictions

I started my World Cup preview yesterday and I suppose the next logical step would be to continue it today.

First of all, there is a little bit of Arsenal news to get out of the way.

The club announced yesterday that Philippe Senderos has joined Fulham after seven years as an Arsenal player. He joined us from Servette in June 2003 and made 117 appearances in those seven years, although they were concentrated in four seasons from 2004-2005 to 2007-2008. He scored four goals in that time, although he was never a regular when all our other players were available. 

His greatest memory for Arsenal was probably his part in the defence that made it to the Champions League final in 2006 and set a record for the most consecutive games in the competition without conceding a goal.

Unfortunately for him, Didier Drogba taught him some very harsh lessons on a few occasions and he didn't seem to learn from them.

Then there was the Champions League quarterfinal defeat at Anfield where Torres did something similar, and that more or less ended his Arsenal career.

For the last two seasons he was an Arsenal player in name only, as he spent all of 2008-2009 on loan at AC Milan and when he returned to Arsenal this season, he only played when no one else was available, with even Silvestre coming ahead of him in the manager's pecking order.

In January, he went on loan to Everton but he couldn't get a game there either after a few appearances early on in the season.

Hopefully he can have a good tournament at the World Cup for Switzerland and his career will take off again at Fulham. If he could convince Hangeland to make the journey in the opposite direction I'm sure most Arsenal fans would be fairly happy too.

It reduces the count of Arsenal players at the World Cup to 10 and another one of them should be on his way quite soon too. William Gallas looks set to leave on a free transfer very soon, as his contract is almost up and he has been making a little bit of noise at the moment.

Then again, I should have said that he is making no noise at all, as he has apparently decided not to speak to the media for the duration of the tournament in a protest against his manager, as he was not made captain.

The armband has gone to Evra, and while I don't like him, I'm sure he will make a better captain than Gallas and Domenech has made a good decision for awhile. Surely Gallas must have learned his lesson when he was stripped of the Arsenal captaincy and he should know to steer clear of the job.

We are linked with Diego of Juventus today, and he's a player that has a lot of talent and would be seen as similar to Cesc in a lot ways. He had three great years in Germany and although he hasn't fit in as well in Italy, he is a player who could possibly fill the role if the unthinkable happened and Cesc did leave. 

However, I would much prefer us to keep Cesc, and I am fairly confident that we will.

It's time for part two of the World Cup Preview now, and first off is group D.

The first seed is Germany, and despite the fact that I don't particularly like to watch them, they cannot be discounted as they almost always perform well at tournaments. The other three teams will all think that they have a genuine chance of making it through to the next stage and if they play well enough, they could possibly win the group.

I suppose that Group D could be described as the group of death as a result, and although Group E is very competitive too, I think Group D deserves the title.

The Germans will definitely miss the injured Ballack, as he was the glue that kept their team together, but I'm sure they will cope well enough without him.

Australia is the second seed, and they will do very well to qualify for the last 16 as a few of their players will see this as their last chance to make their mark in the World Cup. It's not beyond them to put a couple of results together and make it through.

With Serbia as the third seed, you can see why the group is considered so hard. They won a qualifying group with France in it, but when you realise how poor France is, it's not such a great achievement. Serbia will be looking to make an impression and it would be no surprise to see them make the last eight.

Finally in group D there's Ghana, and like Germany, they will also be missing the engine of their team as Essien cannot play due to injury. He is an exceptional player and he could play for any team in the tournament and not look out of place, but Ghana did fairly well in the ACN without him. They managed to reach the final where they lost 1-0 to Egypt and they will be hoping to make their way out of the group and into the last eight at least.

My prediction is for Germany to progress and Ghana to go through with them in a very tight finish.

The No. 1 seed in Group E is the Netherlands, and they're the team I'll be supporting this year. I would have cheered on Spain, but I can't shout for a team with Xavi in it as he continually tells anyone who will listen about how Cesc will join Barcelona and has their DNA.

On the other hand, the Netherlands should have won the World Cup in 1974 and 1978, and ever since then they have failed to make it to another final, despite having some fabulous players at times. Normally it's internal strife that tears the team apart and leads to their elimination, but hopefully they can overcome that this time.

I can't see anyone else but them winning this group and I expect them to go all the way to at least the semifinals, but I would love to see RVP collect a winner's medal before going on to lead the Premier league scoring charts next season. My main worry for them is they can be sloppy at the back sometimes, and from what I've seen, Van Bronkhorst could possibly be a liability for them defensively.

The second seed is Denmark, and with Bendtner up front, they will have a chance of progressing from the group. As with the previous group, all three teams besides the top seed will think they have a good chance to make the knockout stages.

Both Japan and Cameroon are capable of finishing second in the group as well, but I think that whoever does will go no further than the last 16.

From an Arsenal fan's perspective, this group will be very interesting as we have a player on three of the teams and it means we should have a player taking part in every game. I think that Denmark might just make it through, but I wouldn't be surprised if Cameroon managed to finish second either.

I'll preview the last three groups tomorrow, which means all that is left is for me to give you the link for my Fantasy World Cup competition and recommend a few other leagues too. The game can be found here and the code to join my league is 221858-52981.

You can also join in the great Captain Arsenal's league by using the code 290523-68811 and a good friend of mine has a league running with the code 212147-50604. He also has a head-to-head league running which only needs three more teams to fill it and the code is 212147-50623. If all that isn't too much you can join in my results predictions league here and use the code 154756-7741.

Here's some of Arsenal's best goals from 2009-2010.

See You Tomorrow.