Germany
Regardless of form, fitness of key players, etc, they always seem to be there or there abouts, and Jogi Loew's side look like contenders again. While the loss of captain Michael Ballack is an obvious blow, Bastian Schweinsteiger has reinvented himself this season from temperamental, flaky wideman into central midfield powerhouse, and will be expected to thrive in central midfield, with Stuttgart midfielder Sami Khedira his most likely partner, with Werder Bremen stars Mesut Ozil and Marko Marin offering creativity and thrust. Upfront, despite indifferent club form, Mario Gomez, Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski can all be relied upon for the Nationalmannschaft, with relative newcomers Stefan Kiessling, Cacau and Thomas Muller also likely to travel as backup. In defence, Loew has confirmed that Schalke keeper Manuel Neuer will be his 1st choice, ahead of Tim Wiese and Hans-Jorg Butt. Infront of Neuer is a defence which conceded just 5 goals during qualifying- in Ballack's absence, Philipp Lahm has taken the captain's armband, and he's likely to start at left-back, with Arne Friedrich or Andreas Beck at right back. In central defence, Per Mertesacker has matured into one of Europe's best centre-backs, with his partner likely to be Heiko Westermann. They do appear to be hitting some kind of form right now, and have plenty of options in attack- they should do well in South Africa, and can never be ruled out as potential winners
Serbia
Raddy Antic's side qualified impressively, finishing ahead of France, but Antic will have a number of concerns about his side going into the World Cup:
- 1st choice goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic hasn't played much football this season. Out of favour at Sporting CP, he went on loan to Wigan in January, but only made a handful of appearances for Roberto Martinez's men, and didn't exctly convince in those
- Star striker Nikola Zigic is another player who has been short of match action this season, with David Villa keeping him out of the Valencia side (admittedly, he can't really have too many complaints abouth that)
- At 31, Dejan Stankovic is starting to get on a bit (this, incidentally, will be his 3rd World Cup for a 3rd different country). His pace has already faded to such an extent that he's been used by Inter in a much deeper role this season. It remains to be seen how he will cope with a World Cup playing possibly 7 more games after playing 43 games for Inter this season
- Their most recent warm-up match was a disaster, losing 1-0 to New Zealand. The travelling Serbian fans were so disgruntled with their side that The Great Leader Nemanja Vidic had to address them on the stadium PA system to calm them down. They obeyed
Given all these concerns, and throw in the fact that, Zigic apart, there's a lack of strength in depth in attack, and it's certainly possible that Serbia could fail to make it out of their group. However, given the weaknesses of the other 2 nations in the group, they should just make the 2nd round, and a probable meeting with England
Australia
Little has changed with Australia since their last-16 exit in 2006- coach Guus Hiddink has been replaced by his compatriot Pim Verbeek, and many of the players from 2006 are still in the squad- Mark Schwarzer will still be in goals, his defence will still most likely contain the likes of Patrick Kisnorbo, Lucas Neill, Scott Chipperfield and Craig Moore, while the midfield should still feature Brett Emerton, Vince Grella and Tim Cahill, with Harry Kewell operating on the left of a 3 man strikeforce. The crux of this is that most of those players are now the wrong side of 30- Verbeek's squad is short of strikers, too, and he risked alienating some of those players with his criticism of Grella and Cahill's tackling in their warm-up game against New Zealand. They look likely to miss out on repeating their 2006 exploits
Ghana
Like Australia, they made the last 16 in 2006, but like Australia, they look ill-equipped to progress. Losing Michael Essien is a massive blow, but the team looks suspect even with him there. In goals, there are doubts over Richard Kingson's fitness- should he miss out, there is no experienced back-up option for coach Milovan Rajevac. Defensively they look fairly sound, and while Essien will be absent, Sulley Muntari will add thrust and dynamism to the midfield. They do, however, struggle to score goals- in 5 matches during the African Nations Cup, they managed just 4 goals, and if they fail to improve on this, then they're going home
Bets for Group D:
Germany to win Group D: best price 10/11 with Blue Square. This is an insanely good price. Get on it people
Serbia Top Goalscorer Milos Krasic: best price 12/1 with Skybet
Australia to finish bottom of Group D: best price 11/8 with Blue Square
Ghana to score under 3.5 goals: best price 3/5 with bwin
