By Tony Becca - On The Boundary THE WORLD Cup of football is underway and with the best teams in the hunt for the title and the greatest players on show it should be a wonderful contest spiced with brilliant and exciting play.
In fact, with teams like defending champions France, former champions Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Italy and England, plus others like Nigeria and Cameroon hunting the title, with stars like Zinedine Zidane of France, Lius Figo of Portugal, Ronaldo of Brazil, Juan Veron of Argentina, Christian Vieri of Italy, Michael Owen of England and Raul Gonzalez of Spain on parade, it ought to be, as it usually is, brilliant and exciting.
This time, however, it could even be more brilliant and more exciting because of the number of teams in with a real chance of winning the title as the world's best.
Unlike previous occasions when it was realistically between two or three, this time there are six or seven teams that could win, and on top of that, although they are not good enough, although they are not consistent enough to go all the way, there are more teams that could spring surprises and knock off a few of the fancied ones.
France, with Zidane supported by the likes of Patrick Veira, Marcel Desailly, Thierry Henry and Argentina, with the likes of Veron, Ariel Ortega, Javier Zanetti, Matias Almeyda and Diego Simeone, Gabriel Batistuta, Hernan Crespo, Claudio Canaggia and Claudio Lopez, Roberto Ayala and Jose Chamot, are the top favourites.
Although they are without Demetrio Albertini, right behind them are Italy with Vieri, Alessandro Del Piero, Francesco Totti, Luis Di Biagio, Filippo Inzaghi, Marco Delvecchio, Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini and Brazil with Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Juninho, Rivaldo, Roberto Carlos and Cafu.
Although they have fallen on hard times and will be without ace midfielders Mehmot Scholl an Sebastien Deisler, Germany's history and their resilience are such that they cannot be taken for granted - certainly not with players like Christian Ziege, Michael Ballack and Oliver Bierhoff in the their line-up.
The same goes for England. With Paul Gerard out and a few players on the injured list - including David Beckham, things do look good for them. Owen is around, however, and they must be counted among the serious contenders.
So too Nigeria who boast some exciting players in Nwankwo Kanu, Julius Aghahowa, Jay-Jay Okocha, Pius Ikedia, Isaac Okoronkwo and Victor Agali.
Those look like the top seven with the flashes of brilliance coming from teams like Denmark, Spain and Cameroon who, unfortunately, will be without Patrick Mboma.
With a little luck, however, Portugal could be the team of the tournament.
Although they have not been around for some time, they are the ones who could crash the party and walk away with the title. Based on their performance in Euro 2000, they are good, very good, they are gifted players, Figo, Joao Pinto, Rui Costa, Nuno Gomes and Sergio Conceicao are brilliant, and they are not only dreaming of glory. They also believe they can go all the way.
Who will it be? In such a tournament, with such quality teams in the hunt and with so many brilliant players on parade, it could be one of many. Out of the many, however, the one should be Argentina with Portugal in with a great chance.
