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Women's Football

Brazil and the USA should dominate their groups but what about the rest?

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Perfecseun tells us who he expects to progress from Groups C and D at the Women's Football World Cup

The third group, C, is probably the most straightforward of the 4 groups. Norway, Australia, Canada and Ghana will do battle.

Conveniently, you can take out Ghana, they are the 2nd best in Africa next toNigeria and their level of women´s football is not high enough to get them out of this group. Australia has just never impressed in any of their appearances and it is hard to see them beating any other team
apart from Ghana. The Canadians should finish 2nd to Norway, 1995 winners.

Canada is coming into the tournament in good form and will hope to improve their 4th place finish in USA 2003. Norway is the supreme team in this group and have reached the semifinals 3 times out of the previous 4 tournaments. They recently played Germany in a friendly and
they looked very useful, taking the lead on two occasions against the champions but Germany came through late to grab the draw. Norway 1st, Canada to finish as runners-up.

Brazil, China, Denmark and New Zealand make up Group D, the final one. This is the toughest group in my opinion and the only team that can bestruck out is, New Zealand. The Oceania team is still very muchdeveloping at all football level and to expect them to match the likes
of Brazil and China is really a case of asking for a miracle.

Denmark is very much the team that can pop up and surprise. It is a hard call but the host China should use home advantage to clinch the group and Brazil should continue to improve but susceptible to Denmark´s improving youngsters. China 1st, Brazil 2nd.

If things should go to plan, German plays Sweden in QF1, USA vs England in OF 2, Norway vs Brazil in QF 3 and QF 4 will be China vs Canada. The Germans are playing confident football and are very much focused. I haven't heard of or seen any USA friendly matches but their team during their last outing in Algarve (which they won ) was full of young players. The
Americans do have the most experienced player in this tournament, their captain Kristine Lilly who is going for a record 5th World Cup appearance and she will be hoping to go out on a high.

Experience is the key word for this finals with Germany and China the leading teams in this area. The surprise could come from Norway, Brazil or even Denmark as any of them could hit top form and cause a huge upset to the favourites.

Suggested Bet: Lay USA to win the 2007 Women´s World Cup at 2.72. Back Norway,
China and Brazil as alternatives.