At least England beat Mexico but Italy...

[bibblebub]

http://www.guardian.c...ly-world-cup-friendly

Italy beaten by Mexico 2-1 last night and, by all reports, were fairly poor. At least England won 3-1.

Some people have written off England based on these pre-tournament friendlies so should Italy now be dismissed as outsiders?

[TTG]

Not sure but I think England will at least reach the semi-finals.

[bibblebub]

Absolutely. If it's like the last finals when all the teams got worse as the tournament progressed and then you don't need to play like world-beaters every game to

[bibblebub]

get through each round. (as that last posting was intended to finish)

[joeluke]

Friendlies are meaningless warm-up games and have will have no bearing on the finals

At the start of last season Newcastle had been relegated from the Premiership and lost a pre-season friendly 6-1 to Leyton Orient, and all the 'experts' predicted doom and gloom for them. What happened?.......they easily won the Championship title

I am as partiotic as the next man but my head says England won't make it past the Quarter-Finals

Look at our squad and then compare it to Spain's or Brazil's. Our first choice team has quality but the back up players do not. Are any of our goalkeepers or the likes of Upson, Warnock, Carragher, Carrick, Wright-Phillips international class? Honest answer is no

[bibblebub]

But if you can't have a bit of hope (without going overboard) at the start of a tournament when can you?

There be another 2 years till the Euros for 'if onlys' or 'I knew we were rubbish' should we fail.

[neo.]

I like Italy but they have a squad which ive only heard of a third of them....and no superstars.....they may win it by being hard working boring team but they aint gonna light up the WC...I think we could take them

[bibblebub]

just looking at some of the latest friendlies...

Italy only drew 1-1 with Switzerland
France beaten 0-1 by China
Japan beaten 0-2 by Ivory Coast

Italy have the comfort of what should be an easy group, on paper at least.
France might struggle to get out of their's.