Argentina

Mad Maradona is calling on World Cup referees to not be so afraid of blowing the whistle on players. He is basically asking for more protection for flair players at the World Cup, including Lionel Messi.

Now, we are not former footballing superstars here, we're all quite good at five-a-side, but we think the referees in this World Cup are excellent. They are not blowing for players falling over easily and they seem to have remembered that football is a contact sport.

If one of these sides win today, that side can be pretty confident that they will be playing in the last 16 of the 2010 World Cup and if there isn't a winner in the match between Greece and Nigeria later - they will be confirmed as the first team to qualify for the last sixteen.

We don't think that will happen and we will have to wait for a cracking match between Nigeria and South Korea - because one of those will win today and one is going to lose.

Next up is England versus the United States but this was another good game, but maybe it wasn't as easy as Argentina thought it was going to be. Nigeria were no Greece.

We saw a little bit of the Messi magic we were all hoping for and if he continues the way he started this game he will shine at some stage during this tournament and if he gets better, Argentina really could do well.

This is going to be an interesting game. One one side, you have the madness of Maradona and the genius that is Lionel Messi and on the other, you've got an African team that really should do well in familiar territory who will have a lot of local support.

And with both teams expected to progress from the group, I think it is going to make the game even more interesting, because I don't think both will.

Argentina only just about made it to the World Cup finals but Carlos Tevez is talking up their chances of success in South Africa.

Argentina are in Group B alongside Korea Republic, Nigeria and Greece and while they will be favourites to win the group, if only because it is a group that the other three will firmly believe they can come second in.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is tipping Argentina to win Group B in South Africa and has remarked at how France were lucky to get to the World Cup finals, starting in six days.

He told Arsenal.com: "People will all be looking to Lionel Messi in the Argentina squad but they have got lots of good players in their squad.

Argentina coach Diego Maradona named his final 23 man squad for the World Cup yesterday, which included almost everyone as expected but there was no place for Inter Milan captain Javier Zanetti.

The surprise inclusion was that of defender Ariel Garce, who played his first international match for Argentina earlier this month in the 4-0 win against Haiti.

Diego Maradona is the perfect example of exactly how far a fantastic playing career can take you in football. Fortunately for Maradona, managing at international level is only made more difficult when a manager tries to impose a style and he is perfectly suited for this job as all he has to do is get these talented players to play at their best.

If Maradona can do this, Argentina have a very very good chance of winning the World Cup and as of today, you will get 7/1 on them doing this at expekt.com - a very good price considering.