{"id":248863,"date":"2022-10-19T03:32:13","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T03:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/blog\/2022\/10\/19\/lionel-messi-picks-france-and-brazil-as-favourites-to-win-fifa-world-cup-football-news-times-of-india\/"},"modified":"2022-10-19T03:32:13","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T03:32:13","slug":"lionel-messi-picks-france-and-brazil-as-favourites-to-win-fifa-world-cup-football-news-times-of-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/blog\/2022\/10\/19\/lionel-messi-picks-france-and-brazil-as-favourites-to-win-fifa-world-cup-football-news-times-of-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi picks France and Brazil as favourites to win FIFA World Cup | Football News &#8211; Times of India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>MEXICO CITY: <!-- -->Argentina<!-- --> captain <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/lionel-messi\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" data-ga=\"within_article-topic_link|topic_lionel-messi\" frmappuse=\"1\">Lionel Messi<\/a> has said defending champions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.happytrips.com\/topic\/france\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" data-ga=\"within_article-topic_link|topic_https:\/\/www.happytrips.com\/topic\/france\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" frmappuse=\"1\">France<\/a> and <!-- -->Brazil<!-- --> are the favourites to win the World Cup in <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/qatar\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" data-ga=\"within_article-topic_link|topic_qatar\" frmappuse=\"1\">Qatar<\/a> as they have a core group of players who have played together for a long time. <br \/>Messi said Brazil, Germany, France, England and Spain are always labelled favourites to win but the 35-year-old forward feels France and Brazil are the best two teams going into the Nov. 20-Dec. 18 tournament. <br \/>&#8220;We always say the same great teams &#8230; but, if I have to choose, Brazil and France are the two great candidates to win the World Cup,&#8221; Messi told DIRECTV Sports. <br \/>&#8220;They&#8217;ve had the same group (of players) for a long time, working well. France, aside from the last Euros when they were eliminated (in the last 16) and did badly, they have some impressive players. <br \/>&#8220;They have a clear idea and the same coach (Didier Deschamps). Brazil is a bit the same (under Tite).&#8221; <br \/>Messi did not mention Argentina, who are unbeaten in 35 matches, among the favourites even though Lionel Scaloni&#8217;s side won the Copa America last year by beating Brazil in the final. <br \/>But Argentina have been recently hampered by injuries to key players Paulo Dybala and Angel Di Maria. <br \/>Scaloni described club <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/football\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" data-ga=\"within_article-topic_link|topic_football\" frmappuse=\"1\">football<\/a>&#8216;s fixture congestion in October as &#8220;terrible&#8221; but urged his players not to hold back to avoid the risk of injury ahead of the World Cup. <br \/>&#8220;We are in quite a difficult stage. The players are playing a lot of games,&#8221; Scaloni told AFAestudio. &#8220;There can be problems as there are injuries (and) suspensions. It&#8217;s part of being an elite player and a national team player. <br \/>&#8220;I worry, but there is little you can do. I believe that the player has to go out on the pitch to play and not think about what&#8217;s coming &#8211; it can be detrimental. Let them play naturally.&#8221; <br \/>Argentina face the United Arab Emirates in November in their final warm-up match before heading to the World Cup where they play their opening Group C game against Saudi Arabia on Nov. 22. Mexico and Poland are the other teams in the group. <\/div>\n<p><script>!(function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\n                  window.TimesApps = window.TimesApps || {};\n                  const { TimesApps } = window;\n                  TimesApps.loadFBEvents = function() {\n                    (function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\n                      if (f.fbq) return;\n                      n = f.fbq = function() {\n                        n.callMethod ? n.callMethod(...arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments);\n                      };\n                      if (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\n                      n.push = n;\n                      n.loaded = !0;\n                      n.version = '2.0';\n                      n.queue = [];\n                      t = b.createElement(e);\n                      t.async = !0;\n                      t.src = v;\n                      s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n                      s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s);\n                    })(f, b, e, v, n, t, s);\n                    fbq('init', '593671331875494');\n                    fbq('track', 'PageView');\n                  };\n                })(\n                  window,\n                  document,\n                  'script',\n                  'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js',\n                );<\/script><script>if(typeof window !== 'undefined') {\n                  window.TimesApps = window.TimesApps || {};\n                  const { TimesApps } = window;\n                  TimesApps.loadScriptsOnceAdsReady = () => {\n                    var scripts = [\n                    'https:\/\/static.clmbtech.com\/ad\/commons\/js\/2658\/toi\/colombia_v2.js' ,\n                    'https:\/\/www.googletagmanager.com\/gtag\/js?id=AW-877820074',\n                    'https:\/\/imasdk.googleapis.com\/js\/sdkloader\/ima3.js',\n                    'https:\/\/tvid.in\/sdk\/loader.js',\n                    'https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/video_comscore_api\/version-3.cms',\n                    'https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/grxpushnotification_js\/minify-1,version-1.cms',\n                    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#version=v10.0&xfbml=true',\n                    'https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/locateservice_js\/minify-1,version-14.cms'\n                  ];\n                    scripts.forEach(function(url) {\n                      let script = document.createElement('script');\n                      script.type=\"text\/javascript\";\n                      if(!false && !false && !false && url.indexOf('colombia_v2')!== -1){\n                        script.src = url;\n                      } else if (!false && !false && !false && url.indexOf('sdkloader')!== -1) {\n                        script.src = url;\n                      } else if (!false && !false && (url.indexOf('tvid.in\/sdk') !== -1 || url.indexOf('connect.facebook.net') !== -1 || url.indexOf('locateservice_js') !== -1 )) {\n                        script.src = url;\n                      } else if (url.indexOf('colombia_v2')== -1 && url.indexOf('sdkloader')== -1 && url.indexOf('tvid.in\/sdk')== -1 && url.indexOf('connect.facebook.net') == -1){\n                        script.src = url;\n                      }\n                      script.async = true;\n                      document.body.appendChild(script);\n                    });\n                  }\n                }\n                <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/sports\/football\/fifa-world-cup-2022\/lionel-messi-picks-france-and-brazil-as-favourites-to-win-world-cup\/articleshow\/94955421.cms\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] MEXICO CITY: Argentina captain Lionel Messi has said defending champions France and Brazil are the favourites to win the World Cup in Qatar as they have a core group of players who have played together for a long time. Messi said Brazil, Germany, France, England and Spain are always labelled favourites to win but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[9281,1133,8406,15691,1136,760,3774,2085,118093],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haftavasool.com\/haftavasool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}