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Spain
MANAGER: Luis Enrique
QUALIFICATION RECORD: Topped their group with six wins but it wasn’t all plain sailing with an opening draw at home to Greece and loss away to Sweden.
KEY MAN: Pedri
ONE TO WATCH: Ferran Torres
TOURNAMENT PROSPECTS: They will be disappointed if they do not progress past the quarter-finals and once in the final four can beat anyone. If they can turn possession into goals they could go far, but there are concerns at the back, particularly defending set pieces as seen in a 2-1 defeat to Switzerland in September. Spain will play a 4-3-3 with a focus on being more direct than you might picture of a decade ago.
TRADER TIPS: Golden Ball Winner – Pedri.
Costa Rica
MANAGER: Luiz Fernando Suarez
QUALIFICATION RECORD: Made hard work of it, finishing fourth in North & Central America behind Canada, Mexico and the USA. That took them to a playoff against New Zealand where they just scraped through 1-0.
KEY MAN: Joel Campbell
ONE TO WATCH: Jewison Bennett
TOURNAMENT PROSPECTS: Expectations are very low and the 2014 quarter-finalists are considered rank outsiders for this year’s tournament. If they were to qualify from the group it would be massive achievement, with their best chance of a victory likely to come against Japan, with Germany and Spain unlikely to run into many problems. Expect ex-Real Madrid man Keylor Navas to be very busy between the sticks
TRADER TIPS: Keylor Navas to Save a penalty.
Germany
MANAGER: Hansi Flick
QUALIFICATION RECORD: Won nine games, losing just once to North Macedonia, scoring 36 goals and conceding four. Serge Gnabry, Ilkay Gundogan and Timo Werner were joint topscorers with five each.
KEY MAN: Serge Gnabry
ONE TO WATCH: Jamal Musiala
TOURNAMENT PROSPECTS: Have won just two of eight games in 2022 and come into the World Cup under a bit of pressure. On paper they should get out the group, but that was the case in 2018 too. Germany will think they can go all the way and win it, and while they say ‘you can never rule out the Germans’, on this occasion there would appear to be more likely candidates elsewhere
TRADER TIPS: Germany to score 5 or More goals v Costa Rica.
Japan
MANAGER: Hajime Moriyasu
QUALIFICATION RECORD: Japan won six of their last seven games in the final round of the Asia confederation process to finish runners up by a point to Saudi Arabia.
KEY MAN: TakumI Minamino
ONE TO WATCH: Daichi Kamada
TOURNAMENT PROSPECTS: May secretly fancy themselves to turn over one of the bigger nations and qualify for the Last 16. If they can nick a result in the first game against Germany and beat Costa Rica in the second, they are likely to play an already-qualified Spain side last who may rotate players. Should they squeeze through to the Last 16, Belgium may lie in wait. It could be Croatia if they top the group
TRADER TIPS: Japan to Qualify from Group E.
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