England, France, Brazil favorites

Instinctively grabbing the remote control and turning on SBS, I found myself cranky at a program called CGTN English News, likely doubling its usual audience.

"I'm not Lucy Zelic," I say on television, really puzzled.

Then I remembered the awful truth. There was no football today. Neither yesterday. There will be none until the first hours of tomorrow morning, when finally the World Cup quarter-finals will begin.

Life is sometimes hard

Of course, when you can not watch football, there is only one solution. speaks of football

And so I present the filling exercise of time known as news.com.au World Cup Power Rankings.

We ranked the remaining eight teams according to their chances of winning the tournament.

If you do not agree, do not hesitate to leave a comment, to send a tweet well formulated or even to continue the rest of your life.

1. FRANCE

For a country whose sports mascot is a glorified chicken, France plays a surprisingly daring football style.

The French are elegant and aggressive. It's like they've found an artist named Pierre sipping wine in a Parisian pastry shop – wearing a scarf in the middle of summer, of course – and turning it into a team of football.

Their most impressive player is the 19-year-old pacy. the old Kylian Mbappe, whose mere existence embarrbades the rest of us. When I was his age, my greatest achievement was putting 13 Cheetos in my mouth at once. He was busy showing Lionel Messi.

But does France have a good enough defense to win the World Cup? Since he conceded a goal to the Socceroos, maybe not.

2. BRAZIL

Neymar, Coutinho, Willian and Gabriel Jesus form the most powerful line of the tournament. So what is the compromise?

You must watch Neymar squirm around the ground, limbs flying in all directions, such as an inflatable arm waving inflated arms, whenever a defender approaches him.

Theatrics aside, Brazil seems to have discovered the utility of a defense that has been functioning since it was humiliated 7-1 at the last World Cup. This time, he conceded only one goal in all his combined games.

His perspectives are almost as bright as this iconic and radioactive pee suit.

3. ENGLAND

"He comes home," said the pompous English fans after their team managed not to choke on a penalty shootout .

Guys. He does not come home.

England should not be as high in the rankings. He does not have an attack. For 120 minutes against Colombia, he never seemed to score an open game, and you can only count on Harry Kane's slam penalties for so long.

However, he has a pretty strong defense and, above all, a ridiculously easy

With confrontations against Sweden and probably Croatia imminent, the Poms should at least make the final – and then quickly lose to a better side .

4. URUGUAY

The Tyrion Lannister of Football, Uruguay, is a tiny nation of three million people who uses his intelligence and occasional dirty tactics to strike (or in the case of Luis Suarez, bite) above his weight.

All the ingredients for a World Cup dream race are there in the form of a grumpy defense paired with two brilliant attackers.

The only problem? According to the coach of Uruguay, one of these attackers, Edinson Cavani, will have to "destroy medical science" to overcome an injury and play in the quarterfinals against France.

If Cavani is not in shape, Uruguay could easily suffer the same fate. Tyrion at the end of the season – disfigured, sterilized and put away

5. BELGIUM

The famous chocolate land of Belgium, which I imagine to be a little Picture of "would not it be nice if the world was Cadbury", has the best comfort food in the world. And we will have to take out the emergency fudge very soon.

Incidentally, this should read "Would not it be nice if the world was Cadbury", but the one who wrote the lyrics did not clearly appreciate the proper use of the & # 39; Mood of the subjunctive. Shameful. Do not even throw me into the grammatical nightmare that's Zara Larsson's song Lush Life

Whatever it is, I'm pessimistic about Belgium because that's Is only good in flashes. For example, he lost 2-0 to Japan, in the round of 16, before making a brilliant comeback to win in the final seconds.

Fun to watch? Absolutely. But this team does not have the consistency needed to beat Brazil, followed by France or Uruguay, back to back.

6. CROATIA

Croatia is this team that you watch with an empty expression on your face until the commentator mentions Luka Modric, how well you stand up and say : "Oh, Modric, I know him!"

Luka Modric is an excellent player in a camp that is otherwise decent in a medium, average and insignificant way.

He fought to beat Denmark. This is not a good sign. But the quarter-final against Russia is very achievable.

7. SWEDEN

Unraveling Sweden's defense, it's like trying to make sense of the badembly instructions of your IKEA TV cabinet.

You have already seen televisions. They are all built in the same way. But when you put the pieces where you think they're supposed to go, everything crumbles.

Sweden is the same thing. It looks like any other football team, but normal tactics do not work. The crosses in the box are pushed back with ease. Shots on goal are inevitably blocked.

Fortunately for Sweden's opponents, his disciplined and almost impenetrable defense is just about all there is. It took a sagging freak to score against Switzerland in the round of 16, and probably did not have the right Allen key to unscrew the bolts from the bottom line of England.

8. RUSSIA

As the lowest-ranked team in the World Cup, host Russia has never been expected to go that far, but it has had the chance to meet a Spanish team who forgot to put the ball in the net. Score

Plucky as they are, the only real hope of the Russians to win the tournament is if Putin secretly faked it.