France look just as you would expect the reigning world champions to look: potent, menacing, confident, serious. Every time they step on the field, electricity crackles and pulses race. You get the feeling that anyone, from any position, could do something startling and memorable at any moment. If you get a chance to watch the French play, do not miss it!
The Dutch and the English look solid. They're not surprised to be here; they're both executing to a plan. Both are led by solid, capable managers, and solid, reliable captains. They field a solid squad, thick through the middle with experience and knowledge. Other teams wind up and take a run at them, and fall, winded and spent, as though they'd run into a solid wall. No pizzazz, no flash, very little that passes for style. They carry the weight of decades of expectations just as you'd expect them to: solidly.
Argentina, though surely no surprise, is clearly the wildcard of these first four. The greatest player of our lifetime, perhaps of all time, Leo Messi, is still at the peak of his powers, having traded the raw talent of 16 years ago for the instinctive mastery of every detail of the modern game. Entire formations of the game are due to his skill.. But this team is far more than Messi: they are young and strong and well-tested, having run the gauntlet of South American football with confidence, most recently by winning last year's Copa America tournament, beating Brazil on Brazilian soil. But wait, you say! What was that loss to Saudi Arabia, then? Yes: Argentina remain a wildcard. They can be the best team in the world, or they can somehow miss the train.
Can't wait to see who will join these four to complete our final eight!
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