Can Harry Kane fire England to World Cup glory (Photo: Getty)
Manchester United legends Roy Keane and Gary Neville as well as Arsenal icon Ian Wright have revealed who they think will win the 2022 World Cup.
With the World Cup in Qatar now just a few weeks away, the time has come to make serious predictions about who will immortalise themselves in football history.
There is no clear and obvious pick to win with Betfair listing Brazil, France, Argentina, Spain, England and Germany as the favourites.
This is a fact reflected in the predictions of the trio, who were announced on Thursday as part of ITV’s punditry team for their coverage of the tournament.
Former United and England defender Neville has decided to remain patriotic and back Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions who are heading to Qatar under a bit of a cloud following some a poor run of form in 2022.
Neville said: ‘I’m going to go for England! They’ve gone from semi-final, final, runner up and now they are going to go one more.
‘I think they are on a growth over the last few years and I don’t buy into this idea that the Nation League’s performance is them – they played four games in the middle of summer that actually nobody was stimulated by and I think the two games they played recently against Italy and Germany are tough games that you can lose in any single year.
Will Qatar 2022 be Lionel Messi’s last World Cup (Photo: Getty)
‘So, come the tournament, hopefully injuries won’t take too much of a hold and I’m going to go for England. If not England I’m going to go for France or Argentina!’
His former England teammate Wright doesn’t quite share the same enthusiasm however and has instead backed one of the most in form national teams in the world, who have not lost a match since 2019.
‘Argentina – just coming off the back of winning the Copa America last year, it’s a fantastic squad and it might be the last World Cup for [Lionel] Messi,’ the ex-Arsenal striker said.
Brazil’s incredible squad depth should help them go far (Photo: Getty)
‘They can play beautiful attacking football but they also know how to really grind out results when needed.
‘England have shown they can get to the latter stages of big tournaments – we have good tournament experience now and we’d do well to get to the semi-final stages again.’
Keane meanwhile has thrown his support behind a different South American nation and believes that England’s defensive issues will cost them.
‘It’s going to be hard to stop Brazil,’ the former United captain and Republic of Ireland international added.
‘Brazil have such great strength in depth at the moment and some real quality players across the squad. I think France also have some brilliant players and England will come up just short.’
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Not long to go before Qatar 2022.