Argentina/Croatia/Jamaica/Japan

SCHEDULE June 14th ARGENTINA - JAPAN (TOULOUSE, 14:30) JAMAICA - CROATIA (LENS, 21:00) 6月20日 June 21th CROATIA - JAPAN (NANTES, 14:30) ARGENTINA - JAMAICA (PARIS, 17:30) June 26th JAPAN - JAMAICA (LYON, 16:00) ARGENTINA - CROATIA (BORDEAUX, 16:00)

Croatia challenges Argentina and its wealth of talent. Does the Japanese national team have any chance at success as it aims for its first victory? Ironically, the only thing interfering with Argentina's strength is its wealth of talent. Coach Pasarela actually used 46 players in the sixteen matches in the South American qualifiers. Some of the players have already complained about this. Renando, who plays for Real Madrid, made clear his rejection of this policy, stating "maybe I'll regret this sometime later, but I want to be involved too." Balbo, who plays for Roma, has indicated his intention to concentrate on playing in Serie A. Certainly, Argentina has lined up raw material fitting with this much pride. On the other hand, while Croatia, which figures to make it out of the group league in second place, is equal to Argentina in the quality of its players, it falls behind in the quantity. Both teams are expected to use a 3-6-2 and have world-class athletes in all positions, but if Croatia loses any of its regulars, its power falls off so drastically that it could even lose to Japan. This is the difference between countries that can aim for these championship and those that can't.

For Argentina, which is aiming for the championship, it is necessary to at least firm up its members and system. Even though this is a group in which upsets seem unlikely, with tests still being repeated at this stage, a repeat of Sakki at Euro is unavoidable. There is also a danger of being displaced from the top by Croatia, which has Suker and Boksic as its powerful two top players and the speedy and energetic Jarni and Stanic breaking down defenses from the left and right. Jamaica is being reinforced at a high pace with the return of its athletes who play in England and deepened its self-confidence at the Gold Cup, but even the No. 3 representative from Asia, Japan, has a chance to battle at least evenly if it can keep the left foot of the leader Simpson in check. Since everything will be the first time for Japan, it will all become valuable experience, but in order to leave results for 2002, it is absolutely necessary to learn the "taste of winning" here.

TEAM POTENTIAL
	Offense	Defense	Overall	Probability of winning through
ARGENTINA	A	B	A	95%
CROATIA	A	B	B	75%
JAMAICA	C	E	D	20%
JAPAN	D	D	D	20%