On February 11th...

The European leagues are all taking a break from football this mid-week, which means that there will be no action at the club level. This, however, will only give a break to the coaches of the best teams in Europe, but not to the players themselves.

As the clubs take a break, it is now the turn for the national teams to face off in a number of extremely interesting, and a number of well... less interesting games. Out of the various fixtures scheduled in the FIFA agenda this wednesday, three of them caught my attention; Brazil vs. Italy, Spain vs. England, and France vs. Argentina. So what's going to happen?

Well, let's start with the world Champions facing the Seleção. Marcello Lippi is back to coaching Italy, which means that Italy have a real chance of actually winning against the Brazil national team, and while the Brazil team should never ever be underestimated, they are not really in their best form in the recent times, which gives Italy a golden chance to avenge for their loss in the world cup Final of 1994. Have they met since then?

Brazil's national team does include Kaka, Ronaldinho, Pato, and Luis Fabiano among others, and three of those play in Italy, which means they actually know the italian game, but will that be good enough?

The more interesting game looks to me to be Spain vs. England. These two countries have the best leagues in Europe, and pretty much have the best players as well. I see in this game a summary of the games between Barcelona and Man U, Liverpool and Real Madrid, and many more combinations of that sort. I do feel, however, that Spain has an advantage here. England does not have a fully functional squad. They have one of the best two central defenders in the world; Ferdinand and Terry, but they do miss their best strikers and some midfielders; namely Rooney and Gerard. On the other side, Spain has a fully functional side, with not only the players in Europe who just won the European Championship, but some new youngsters, who are proving to be good enough to challenge for a place in an already crowded national team.

Finally, it will be nice to see Messi play with the Argentina national team when entertaining France in Marseille. With Henri and Abidal on the other side, it is always a beautiful prospect to see Barca players play against each other, and while I do not doubt the quality of Abidal and his experience in his position, marking Messi is not going to be easy for him.

My personal predictions:

Italy vs Brazil: 1-1
Spain vs. England: 2-0
France vs. Argentina: 1-2