Are Serbia a Potential Suprise Package in South Africa?

Although it is highly unlikely that a team outside of the top eight in the competition will win the World Cup, there are a number of teams, normally classified as 'outsiders' who could cause a shock or two and maybe even three or more on top of those. Most neutral football fans will gladly support an outsider in a tournament, and it is reasonable to think that some of that support will be directed at Serbia for the 2010 World Cup.

Serbia head to South Africa, with odds to win, but also with a great deal of confidence, most of which is based upon recent form. Drawn in the same Group as Germany, Ghana and Australia, Serbia are rated 66/1 to win the World Cup, but are second favourites to qualify in the Group D odds.

They qualified for South Africa by winning their European qualifying group, which consisted of France, Austria, Lithuania, Romania and the Faroe Islands. In their ten matches played against these sides they won seven, drew one and lost two, thus winning the Group by one point from France. They won one and drew one of their two games against France meaning the finalists of four years ago were forced to qualify for South Africa via the Play-Off route.

Serbia are coached by former international Rado Ancic, who, in 20 games in charge has won 15 times, with just 4 defeats. This is a record that compares favourably with most of the top eight sides in the world. They have won their last two matches very impressively by 3-0 each time against fellow World Cup qualifiers, Japan and Algeria and they go to South Africa with a full and fit squad. Should they qualify as expected from Group D, they will almost certainly play England in the Round of 16, a match that they are more than capable of winning if their form is right and England’s is not.

More interestingly however would be if they managed to qualify ahead of Germany in their Group, thus playing, possibly the USA in the last 16.

The Germany odds to win the World Cup reflect the fact that they are not the same side as they once were these days and are ripe and ready to be taken by one of the emerging nations, such as Serbia. It will be reasonable to assume that Serbia will go all out to get a good start in Group D which means therefore that they must beat Ghana in their opening game, before taking on Germany on 21st June. Should this all go to plan, then Serbia could easily make the quarter finals to face possibly Argentina, should they justify the betting and get that far.

As has been well reported, Argentina only just made it to the World Cup finals themselves after struggling to qualify in the South American Group. The jury is still out on the potency of Diego Maradona as their coach and of the player’s motivation to succeed under him ahead of the finals. A bet therefore at around 12/1 on Serbia making the World Cup Semi Final is not totally out of the question and would become a distinct possibility should they manage to qualify as Group D winners.

Previous surprise packages in recent World Cups that have made the Semi Finals have included, Sweden and Bulgaria in 1994, Croatia in 1998 and South Korea and Turkey in 2002. Proving that the less fancied teams can progress to the latter stages of the tournament and this year, that surprise package could well be Serbia!