Ghana's Michael Essien stands to be the decisive figure in South Africa 2010's Group D (Photo: DynaKat/Flickr)

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While analyzing October's mammoth Russia-Germany match-up, I started using the term German mysticism to describe the aura around the German men's national team.  Few times in the history of the footballing world have the Germans been considered the most talented side, yet the consistent greatness of their results is nearly incomparable.  As a result, you often hear analysts offer:  the Germans find a way to win.  Consider:

• Germany has made the quarters in seven straight finals.  
• In fourteen straight tournaments, they have got to at-least the second round.  
• They've won three titles, ...
• been runners-up four times, ...
• with four addition semi-final appearances, ...
• meaning they been to the World Cup's final four eleven times.  

There have only been 18 World Cups.

While there are doubts, most notably from their own captain, as to whether Germany will be as good in 2010, any group with the Germans will be tough.  Even if they are down (as they were rumored to be before their semi-final run of 2006), you would not be along in thinking one of this group's Round of 16 places is all-but-confirmed.  

That would leave one spot for three teams carrying  similarly impressive qualifying resumés and talent-bases.  All of Australia, Ghana, and Serbia not only won their qualifying groups, they punched their South Africa tickets before their final qualifying match thanks to talents like Cahill and Schwarzer, Essien and Muntari, Vidic and Stankovic.

A true four-squad group from which any of the teams an emerge, World Soccer Digest's continued analysis of presents The Jury of Chronic Affliction: Group D.

Elo - Elo Rating; FIFA - FIFA World Ranking, December 2009; SPI - Soccer Power Index, Silver/Soccernet; SPA - Set Piece Analysts World Cup Power Poll; Avg. - Statistical mean of four measures

Germany has slipped a couple of spots in the analytics, being mysteriously passed by Portugal in the FIFA rating.  Our one qualitative measure (SPA) rates them higher, making them second-favorites (with Spain).

As was the case with Group H, the remaining teams make this seem like a weak group.  Serbia rates as a weak co-pilot.  Australia is at the end of the third-slot-range, while Ghana's mean is 33 upon entering the 32-team tournament.  By those measures, this group might have more in common with Argentina's than Spain's.

So why the high group rating?  Our team breakdowns may convince you:

Germany - Michael Ballack (33, M, Chelsea, England) has recently questioned the capabilities of his squad, not the confidence you want from a captain, let alone a captain who has already had a (potentially armband-stripping) conflict with coach Joachim Löw.  

Still, when you look at the German squad and compare them to the world's other elites, you start to share Ballack's concerns.

In goal, René Adler (24, Bayer Leverkusen, Germany) is starting to emerge as the team's number one, though Manuel Neuer (23, Schalke 04, Germany) will have a say in Löw's final decision.  

Adler was a key to Germany's last win over Russia in Moscow.  Were he to perform to that level, Adler could be a difference-making asset in South Africa.  Still, compared to counterparts with other favorites (Brazil, Spain, Italy), Adler is untested at the highest levels.

At the back, German relies on precision and consistency rather than talent.  We've seen in the Euro 2008 final (versus Spain) and in their match in Moscow that even when they play well, a back four including Per Mertesacker (25, Werder Bremen, Germany), Heiko Westermann (26, Schalke 04), Philipp Lahm (26, Bayern Munich, Germany) and potentially Jerome Boateng (21, Hamburg, Germany, not at Euro 2008) can be beaten.  

That criticism is a relative one.  Ask yourself how many defenses have the ability to consistently handle sides like Spain and Russia. You would have a very short list.

The remainder of Germany's set-up depends on the formation Löw eventually chooses.  Formerly, Germany was predominantly a 4-4-2 side.  Recently, Löw switched to an advertised 4-3-3 (a functional 4-5-1) to close qualifying.  

This formation has allowed Löw to feature attacking midfielder Mesut Özil (21, Werder Bremen), one of the keys to the program's future, while glossing over an increasingly thin strike force.  Miroslav Klose (31, Bayern Munich) is in decline, Mario Gómez (24, Bayern Munich) has been specious internationally, Lukas Podolski (24, Köln, Germany) is best used on the wing, which puts a lot on the shoulders of an internationally inexperienced Stefan Kießling (25, Bayer Leverkusen).

It is players like Özil - the youth of the German team - that will determine whether Germany can be leading contenders in South Africa.  Germany has the type of game that can succeed in the elements of South Africa.  Even with those advantages, Joachim Löw will need the some of this youth to emerge so that the talent gap between his side and (say) Brazil can be bridged.  How many of Özil, Boateng, Thomas Müller (20, M/F, Bayern Munich), Marko Marin (20, M, Werder Bremen), Aaron Hunt (23, F,  Werder Bremen), Andreas Beck (22, D, 1899 Hoffenheim, Germany) and Serdar Tasci (22, D, Stuttgart, Germany) prove elite senior players will determine whether Germany can match their performance from 2006.

If these players can speed-up a development that made the German's the main European threat for Brazil 2014, the team has the right man to guide them.  Löw used qualifying to again show his coaching acumen, running circles around the respected Guss Hiddink before-and-during Germany's showdown match in Russia on his way to an unbeaten qualifying campaign.  

If the next generation of German star is ready to assert itself, Löw should be able to alleviate his captain's concerns and steer his team to another semifinal.

Serbia - Another in a litany of teams that do not get respect outside their own region, Serbia has the talent to win this group.  That's not to say they are the most talented side; rather, the handful to elite talents they have combined with good players at almost every position make them capable of winning any match in this group.

First, let's talk about those talents.  At the back, they have a defender who's forced himself into "best in the world" discussions:  Nemanja Vidic (28, D, Manchester United, England), whose combination of physicality, athleticism, and instinct is unique amongst central defenders.  In the middle, the versatile Dejan Stankovic (31, M, Internazionale,  Italy) is the Serbian answer to Michael Essien - somebody who can influence (if not control) a game from box-to-box.  On the wing, Milos Krasic (25, M, CSKA Moscow, Russia) has used UEFA Champions League to show his game-breaking ability, and he is the least internationally successful of Radomir Antic's wingers (Milan Jovanovic led the team during qualifying with five goals).

Beyond the those stars, you find a commonality with the Serbs:  they are big, they are strong, and they're a horrible problem to defend on set-pieces.  All of Branislav Ivanovic (25, D, Chelsea), Aleksandar Lukovic (27, D, Udinese, Italy), Aleksandar Kolarov (24, D, Lazio, Italy), Nenad Milijas (26, M, Wolverhampton Wanderers, England), and Danko Lazovic (26, F, PSV, Netherlands) measure over six feet tall, and combined with Nikola Zigic (6'8", 29, Valencia, Spain) make it very difficult to match-up on a dead ball.  In some XIs, Stankovic would be the only starter under six feet tall, a fact offset when he serves the set pieces.

The flip-side to the size coin is usually the sacrifice of speed.  It would he harsh to call the Serbs slow or un-athletic, but they certainly are not quick.  The same problems Germany would have against a skilled team that's fleet-of-foot, the Serbs would have two-fold.

In group play, the best example of this deficiency was Serbia's last performance against France.  While Les Blues are a particularly quick team, they are skilled, a trait that allowed them to  get a 1-1 draw in Belgrade.  While that result may not seem remarkable, France was down a man for most of the match after goalkeeper Hugo Lloris was (harshly) given an early red card for taking down a man in the box.  

Serbia would get their only goal with the resulting penalty kick, but despite being up a man, they were unable to put the French away.  Les Blues, tactically disorganized throughout qualifying, used their superior skill on-the-ball to control the match, eventually equalizing and earning an unlikely point.

Radomir Antic seems conscious of this problem.  In both qualifiers against France, he switched from his normal 4-4-2 to a 4-5-1 (with little success).

Given Serbia's most reliable means of scoring goals, their inability to take the ball off the feet of skilled opponents is more pronounced than it would be for other sides.  If Serbia can not posses, they can not generate opportunities for set pieces.  Without those opportunities, a significant part of their attacking threat goes away.

In that way, the Serbians got a fortunate group draw.  Neither Germany nor Australia are particularly predisposed to taking advantage of this weakness (though Ghana will be a problem).  Had the Serbs been draw into Group H, their weakness would be more readily exploited.

On the other hand, Serbia could have very will have won Group C, had they been drawn into that group in place of Slovenia.

Australia - The Aussies had a highly successful debut in the Asian confederation, tearing through the last round of qualifying with a 6-2-0 (W-D-L) record.  While that result was impressive, it was almost entirely a function of advantages their style gave them in Asia, advantages which will disappear in this group.

Although they were capable of winning other ways, Australia's most successful means of getting goals seemed to send balls into the area and use their superior physicality and aerial ability )to score goals and draw penalties).   Their reliance on this approach is surprising when you note their coach, Dutchman Pim Verbeek, cut his teeth Guus Hiddink and Dick Advocaat, working as an assistant during their stints with South Korea.  

In how Australia builds their attacks, you see a little of the Dutch-style fluidity.  Additionally, Verbeek's roster management is very Hiddink, shuffling his starting XIs based on match-ups.  But in qualifying - in the final execution -the Australians were very direct:  hit the ball into the box and win the battles in the air.

The obvious question, given a grouping with Germany and Serbia:  Can that approach translate to group play?  If it can not, what is the back-up plan for the Socceroos?  Do they have the players who can employ other aspects of the Dutch-stylek?  Few would associate Australia with that level of skill (though they have been playing under this approach since 2005).

The Socceroos have some good players not named Tim Cahill (30, M/F, Everton, England), but let's start with him, because that's where the Aussies' hopes begin.  In the English Premier League, he has become a critical cog to David Moyes's set-up.  On the international level - on a side with few players capable of consistently scoring goals - he's even more important.  

While in England Cahill has become most prominently associated with his physical toughness, on the larger  pitches used in the international gave, Cahill more room to augment that toughness with his (for lack of a better term) athleticism.  With the way the Australians play, Cahill uses that ability to beat defenders to spots and be better positioned for crosses.  With the huge center backs and more narrow pitches of England, that task would be more difficult for a player of Cahill's size.  In international play (during qualifying), he has been able to play bigger than his listed 5'10".

The other star for Australia is goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer (37, G, Fulham, England): a goalkeeper capable of stealing matches; one of the reasons why Australia allowed only one goal (in eight matches) during their last round of  qualifying.  Schwarzer has been a part of the national team for almost seventeen years, and at 37-years-old, this could be his final World Cup appearance.

Beyond Cahill and Schwarzer, the Aussies have a litany of talent plying their trade at the highest levels of the club game:  defender and captain Lucas Neill (31) is at Everton in England; defender David Carney (26) plays for FC Twente in Holland; midfielder Brett Emerton (30) and Vince Grella (30) play with Blackburn in the English Premier League; Mark Bresciano (29) is with Palermo in Serie A; Harry Kewell (31) is a regular for Galatasaray in Turkey.

Up front, Australia has been unable to adequately replace Mark Viduka, their captain at Germany 2006 who, without a club, looks likely to miss South Africa.  The best candidate to replace him seems Josh Kennedy (27), a tall (6'5"), lanky striker currently playing for Nagoya Grampus in the J-League after spending the preceding nine years of his career in Germany.  Kennedy, however, is a symbol of Australia's qualifying-finals problem.  In AFC, Kennedy's height was often a decisive advantage.  It's unlikely Kennedy's physical prowess will play as successfully in Group D.

If Australis  is unable to attack the German and Serb back lines  the same way they went after the Japanese and Qatari, they will need to find a different way of generating goals.  If they continue defending well, they won't need to find many; however, unless Pim Verbeek can tweak Australia's approach, the Aussies are unlikely to repeat Germany's second round success.

Ghana -  As with the other, non-South Africa CAF qualifiers, we will get some idea of Ghana's capabilities during January's African Cup of Nations, though the Black Stars will be seriously hampered (in a tough Group B) by the absences of Sulley Muntari (25, M, Internazionale) and captain Stephen Appiah (29, M, Bologna, Italy).  Injuries will keep each out of the competition.

It's a testament to Ghana that, even with the absence of those two stars, they may still have one of the better midfields in the tournament.  The Ghanaians will still have Michael Essien (27, M, Chelsea), Anthony Annan (23, M, Rosenborg, Norway) and André Ayew (20, M/F, Marseille/Aries) to patrol the middle of the pitch.  Come June - when Muntari and Appiah should return - the Black Stars will complement those national team fixtures with the next generation of Ghanaian midfield talent:  Kwadwo Asamoah (20, Udinese) and Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu (19, Udinese), both of whom made appearances during qualitying.  Asamoah, in particular, should be primed to make a mark in South Africa.

But you can not talk about emerging Ghanaian talent without focusing on Dominic Adiyiah (20, F, AC Milan, Italy), the best player at this summers U-20 World Cup.  In Egypt, Adiyiah scored eight goals (winning the tournament's Golden Boot), was awarded the competition's Most Valuable Player award, and led his team to the title - the Satellites becoming the first African nation to win the tournament.  Adiyiah has become the leading figure of an emerging talent pool that can draw interesting (sometimes favorable) comparisons with Germany's.  

It's a subtle coincidence of Group D that the European program with the best young players was drawn with Africa's best young talent .  That those countries happen to be Germany and Ghana, a nation with strong German influences in their game, makes the coincidence less subtle.

Whether the best of that talent (Adiyiah) is a regular come June is the question.  We have seen the World Cup serve as the coming-out party for similar talents, but unless Adiyiah can rise above Matthew Amoah (29, Breda, Netherlands) and Asamoah Gyan (24, Rennes, France) in Milovan Rajevac's pecking order, Adiyiah is unlikely to get the playing time needed to announce himself as the world's next African footballing star.  

Adiyiah faces similar selection issues at Milan.  Over the next six months, Milan will be fighting for titles on multiple fronts, having already established a chemistry amongst their three forwards.  The birth of Adiyiah's exciting (potential) partnership with fellow 20-year-old forward starlet Alexandre Pato may have to wait until the Ghanian has more time training with the team.

If Adiyiah can overcome obstacles for both club and country and break into Ghana's team by next June, he can give the Stars the difference-making striker that has kept them from being one of the tournament's favorites.   Cote d'Iviore has become the critical flavor-of-the-tournament because of Didier Drogba, and Samuel Eto'o's record with Cameroon has many considering them before Ghana (despite Amoah and Gyan both being very good players).  If Adiyiah can be a factor by June, Ghana would go from dark horse to one of the leading candidates in the group behind Brazil and Spain.

While Ghana midfield and forwards have a potent mix of experienced veterans (still in their primes) and young stars, their defense carries questions.  Though Richard Kingson (31, Wigan Athletic, England) has been solid in goal, it has to be worrisome that he has rarely played for his clubs since moving to the English Premier League three seasons ago.  While fullback John Pantsil (28, Fulham, England) can be relied upon and Eric Addo (31, Roda) has been a mainstay in the middle throughout qualifying in the middle, the rest of the back carries doubts.

Rajevac will call upon some combination of John Mensah (27, Olympique Lyonnais/Sunderland) and young talents Samuel Inkoom  (20, FC Basel, Switzerland) and Harrison Afful (23, Espérance ST, Tunisia), a group whose questions range from health issues and inconsistency to inexperience.  Along with Pantsil and Addo, they formed a core that gave up eight goals in twelve African qualifiers, a sum that looks strong until you consider Cameroon (with four) and Cote d'Iviore (six) gave up fewer while arguably having more difficult qualifying routes.

Ghana's strength in midfield can control each of their group stage matches yet yield poor results if their defending can not manage set pieces and crosses from a trio of opponents who will be strong in the air.  How Addo and Mensah handle that challenge will dictate if Ghana meets expectations and advances.

Worthless Predictions

June 13, Pretoria:  Ghana 2, Serbia 1 - The key to this match might be the referee.  If the referee calls it tight, Ghana could be in trouble, as Essien, Muntari and Annan give away set piece opportunities to the potent Serbs.  If the referee lets the Ghanians play more physically, they will control the match.  This prediction is more of a middle-ground, under-most-scenarios pick.

June 13, Durban:   Germany 2, Australia 0 - The Germans will be well prepared for this match, and absent mistakes from the favorites, I don't see how Australia breaks through the German defense.

June 18, Port Elizabeth:  Germany 2, Serbia 1 - This will be a tough one, but ultimately the Germans will be able to take advantage of the Serb's lack of speed by using the wide play of Podolski and Schweinsteiger to exploit their opponents.  German's inability to dominate the midfield (and Ballack's inability to chop people down without gifting Serbia set pieces) keeps their opponents in the match.  There will be a lot of scary moments in second half stoppage time, after which pundits will declare the Germans vulnerable.  Sadly, considering how well they've played, Serbia's hopes of advancing are dead unless the Socceroos can get three points from Ghana.

June 19, Rustenberg:  Ghana 1, Australia 0 - The Aussies lack the quality to wrestle control of the match from Essien, Muntari, Annan and/or Appiah.  Schwarzer and stout defending keep the Australians in the match, but aside from a few gasps at fruitless crosses, there is little hope for an equalizer.  Ghana is through to Round 2.

June 23, Nelspruit:  Serbia 3, Australia 1 - Serbia is too big, too strong, and too organized for the Australians, who are left to wonder what went wrong.  The answer:  the draw.  This group may be the deepest of the tournament, but for Australia, it's also a number of bad match-ups.  In Group A, they could have gotten out.  In Group D,  they could go home without a point.

June 23, Johannesburg:  Ghana 2, Germany 1 - Where both sides have already advanced, this match is all about reward - the risks having been minimized.  In these types of matches, it's informative to ask which side will want it more.  Even under normal circumstances, Germany would have  trouble dealing with the likes of Essien and Muntari (who wouldn't?), but where Ghana could be motivated for a landmark victory, thoughts of Round 2 could overcome the German minds.  That is, after all, how they ended up losing to Croatia in group play at the last European Championships.