Who Are The Dark Horses This Time?

With a stroke of Gareth Bale’s magic wand of a left boot and an, unfortunately, attempted clearance from Ukrainian captain Andriy Yarmolenko, the qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup had finally been determined. From Europe, at least. It was Captain Bale and his Welsh gladiators – namely the Herculean Ben Davies and the brick wall known as Wayne Hennessy – who emerged victorious in Cardiff on Sunday afternoon, securing their passage to Qatar, their first appearance at football’s greatest showpiece for over 60 years. Oddschecker, who compare online bookmakers providing betting and free offers on the World Cup, have determined that Wales have a decent chance of progressing out of Group B and into the knockout stages. They may provide some shocks on the way, just as they did back at Euro 2016 when they downed Belgium en route to the semifinals. 

But it isn’t just Robert Page’s men who could turn a few heads. The World Cup always has the potential to surprise. Heung-Min Son’s late winner for South Korea knocked reigning champions Germany out four years ago. If we look further back, who can forget the curtain-raiser back in 2002? That time around it was tournament debutants Senegal who defeated a France team that won the competition on home turf four years prior, with a squad containing the likes of Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry. This year’s battle in the desert also has plenty of potential to surprise. Here are our ones to watch out for this winter. 

Qatar – Group A 

Can you believe that it’s been 12 years since Qatar were awarded the honour of hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup? Believe it or not, it was way back in December 2010 that the world’s collective jaws dropped upon the disgraced Sepp Blatter revealing that football’s biggest party was heading to the Middle East. At the time of the announcement, the Qataris could not have been faring much worse on the pitch. 

They were way down in 113th place in the FIFA World Rankings, below the likes of North Korea, Iraq and Syria. To make matters worse, videos were going viral of striker Fahad Khalfan missing an open goal from one yard out against Uzbekistan and the planet was bracing itself for the future hosts to be embarrassed in front of their very eyes. 

‘The Maroon’ however, have put those 12 intervening years to good use. They’ve steadily risen up the world rankings and even managed to pick up silverware…