2010 FIFA World Cup Previews: June 20, 2010

Slovakia vs Paraguay

This is an interesting looking match as Slovakia, despite being the underdogs, are not as outmatched as they might appear on first glance.

Considering the fact that Italy should easily beat New Zealand, this match could quite easily make a big difference to which team gets passed the group stages.

The Slovaks need to win this game if they expect to progress, but a win would leave them only needing a draw against Italy and judging by the Italians horrible attack this could be a real possibility.

Paraguay are coming off the back of a respectable and rather tactically advantageous draw against Italy. It seems likely that they will be playing a much more attacking game this time round.

A win here would give them a real chance of progression as their final match will be against New Zealand.

Either way this match will probably be the decider for second place in the group stage.

Italy vs New Zealand

Italy got the point that they needed against Paraguay, now they face the easiest match of their group against the out of their depth New Zealanders.

The Italians have a good opportunity to pretty much secure their qualification here and assuming that their attacking force can pull their finger out a little bit they should be able to capitalize on it relatively easily.

The big worry for Italy is of course the fitness of Buffon who will definitely miss the match, but it remains to be seen if the man who was at one point hailed as the world’s best goalkeeper will be fit to play in the next games.

Mathematically speaking the Kiwi’s still have just as much chance of progressing as anybody else. Whereas the odds are not in their favour they did pick up an impressive point against Slovakia, their first ever World Cup point.

For many of the New Zealand players this is a fantastic opportunity to showcase themselves to the world and hopefully they’ll showcase themselves as well as they did against Slovakia.

Brazil vs Ivory Coast

Brazil are one of the few World Cup favourites who are actually playing like they have a chance of winning, but that isn’t really a surprise they are a side who never fail to deliver a spectacle.

Even though they were stretched at times by North Korea they did at least look like a world class side going forward. The thing Brazil will have to watch is the Coasts attack, as with the return of Drogba this could shake their backline quite easily.

Sven’s Ivory Coast is bolstered by the return of the Chelsea hit man Drogba, he looks able to provide the Coast with exactly what they lacked in their last match, a competent finisher.

This is a side which was on fire in qualifying and due to its youth looks like it will only get better.

The Coast was able to contain Portugal and if they can up their game just a little bit then they have every chance of beating Brazil.

Xavier - live scores and sports