Fintan O’Toole
1. What’s your earliest World Cup memory?
Ray Houghton putting the ball in the Italian net in the Giants Stadium in 1994
2. Who’s going to win it all? And name second, third and fourth also.
The scriptwriter ending would round off Messi’s glorious career with the World Cup on 18 December, but I think the trophy will go elsewhere in South America. Brazil to win, France runner-up, third place for Argentina and fourth for Portugal.
3. Who’s going to be the surprise package of the tournament?
20 years after reaching the last eight of the World Cup, Senegal could make their mark again, building on February’s Africa Cup of Nations win.
4. Who will be top scorer?
An original selection in Lionel Messi. Otherwise Memphis Depay, his scoring record has been brilliant for the Netherlands over the last couple of years.
5. Which big team are you expecting to underperform or flop?
After strong showings in their last two tournaments, I think England could be on the slide this time.
6. RTÉ, BBC, or ITV?
ITV – The Keane, Nevile and Souness combination is a winning one.
7. What are you most looking forward to and least looking forward to?
Midweek daytime football should be great, watching Argentina will liven up a Tuesday sporting morning, and the hope that the overall standard will be raised as it occurs mid-season for the players, they should be sharp. But it’s all overshadowed by the reminder of the grim process that resulted in Qatar hosting the tournament in the first place and all the off-field issues in a country which will have the eyes of the world on it.
8. Sum up the 2022 World Cup in one sentence…
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, set to play on the same international stage for the last time. Will we see their likes again?
Paul Fennessy
1. What’s your earliest World Cup memory?
The ’94 World Cup was the first big one for me. Germany beating Bolivia 1-0 thanks to a 61st-minute Jurgen Klinsmann strike would have been forgettable for most people but I distinctly remember the novel feeling it inspired.
If you include qualifiers, the infamous Northern-Ireland-Republic-of-Ireland Windsor Park clash was the first football match I ever properly watched.
I also had a frequently watched VHS tape that was essentially a history of Brazilian football through the lens of the World Cup, which I may have seen before USA ’94 but couldn’t be sure.
2. Who’s going to win it all? And name second, third and fourth also.
Without any great confidence, I’m tipping Brazil to win it by virtue of the fact that they seem to have among the most impressive collection of players and looked very solid in qualifying. For similar reasons, I think France will reach the final, with Germany third and Argentina fourth.
3. Who’s going to be the surprise package of the tournament?
I think Serbia and Uruguay are among the more underrated teams who boast impressive squads. The former could easily end up playing Portugal in the round of 16, who they beat in qualifying and may therefore repeat the trick to earn a place in the quarters.
Uruguay could actually meet Serbia too in the round of 16, though second place in their group would likely mean a knockout clash with Brazil. Nonetheless, they’ve some really talented players, including captain Diego Godín, Luis Suarez, Federico Valverde, Rodrigo Bentacur and Darwin Nunez, so are certainly capable of going further than expected.
4. Who will be top scorer?
England should get to the quarter-finals at least, so Harry Kane will have a decent chance of repeating his win four years ago. It would, however, be foolish to rule out the likes of Lautaro Martinez, Lionel Messi, Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappe.
5. Which big team are you expecting to underperform or flop?
I’d be surprised to see Belgium go further than the round of 16. Many of their top players have seen better days, and if they emerge from the group stages, their first knockout game will likely be against either Germany or Spain.
6. RTÉ, BBC, or ITV?
I’d be inclined to say ITV, with the likes of Gary Neville and Roy Keane a big draw, but I, unfortunately, don’t have access to the station these days, so I’m happy enough with RTÉ — pundits such as Richie Sadlier, Damien Duff and Liam Brady are always well worth listening to.
7. What are you most looking forward to and least looking forward to?
Most looking forward to: The sheer unpredictability of it all. 95% of Premier League and even Champions League games have an unsurprising outcome, whereas international football at the highest level is far less clear cut and I find that refreshing.
Least looking forward to: The conspicuous silence about what’s going on in Qatar for the most part and the pathetic attempts by Fifa among others to insist that the focus should purely be on football amid the numerous disgraceful events that preceded this tournament.
8. Sum up the 2022 World Cup in one sentence…
Should never have gone ahead in Qatar and has been sadly overshadowed by the countless ignominious human rights violations that continue throughout the country, while in the process, irrevocably staining a wilfully ignorant sport.
Gavin Cooney
1. What’s your earliest World Cup memory?
It is genuinely Saipan. You might say that an intractable squabble among men underpinned by a dysfunctional football organisation and backdropped to an unsuitable host country was a pretty fitting first glimpse of what the later World Cups of my life would become.
If you want an on-the-pitch memory, it’s the Senegal players dancing around Papa Bouba Diop’s jersey, celebrating his goal against France in the opening game in 2002.
2. Who’s going to win it all? And name second, third and fourth also.
Having played with the predictor, I have Brazil winning, beating Spain in the final. With Argentina third and France fourth.
3. Who’s going to be the surprise package of the tournament?
Maybe I am overrating them having seen them against Ireland, but I think Serbia can make the quarter-finals.
4. Who will be top scorer?
I am so, so tempted to say Aleksandar Mitrovic, but I’ll pick the duller option and say Neymar.
5. Which big team are you expecting to underperform or flop?
I feel this is post-peak Belgium, so they might underwhelm despite De Bruyne and Courtois being at the top of their powers. I also don’t think a whole lot of Portugal, who have a Ronaldo Problem in the sense they would be better without him but won’t drop him.
6. RTÉ, BBC, or ITV?
Post Dunphy and Giles, my RTE ardour has faded, but they are still the only option for England games. ITV otherwise.
7. What are you most looking forward to and least looking forward to?
Leaving aside everything off the field, I am most looking forward to seeing Lionel Messi, less exhausted than he might have been at a summer edition and also seemingly revitalised by an Argentina set-up that seems to have dialled down the psychodrama.
Iran are a fascinating story with regard to what’s happening back home, but on the pitch, they call to mind Jorge Valdano’s old, ‘Shit on a stick’ line. Carlos Queiroz is back for a fourth-straight World Cup, despite the fact he left Iran after 2018 and was sacked first by Colombia and then Egypt for failing to qualify. You can’t keep a good man down.
8. Sum up the 2022 World Cup in one sentence…
The end of innocence.
Enda Coll
1. What’s your earliest World Cup memory?
Watching the 2002 World Cup in school on this mad new technology called a projector screen.
2. Who’s going to win it all? And name second, third and fourth also.
Argentina, France, Brazil, Germany.
3. Who’s going to be the surprise package of the tournament?
Canada
4. Who will be top scorer?
Angel Di Maria
5. Which big team are you expecting to underperform or flop?
Portugal potentially, given the current controversy surrounding one player. Uruguay could either be amazing or awful.
6. RTÉ, BBC, or ITV?
Previously, I would’ve said RTÉ all the way with the old trio of Dunphy, Giles and Brady but now it’d be ITV for Roy Keane.
7. What are you most looking forward to and least looking forward to?
Most looking forward to seeing whether Messi ends his career with a World Cup, it’s probably his best chance.
Least looking forward to the blandness of this World Cup. It’s usually a brilliant, colourful occasion but can’t see it this year.
8. Sum up the 2022 World Cup in one sentence…
The greatest show in the world to distract us from the greatest crooks in the world.
David Sneyd
1. What’s your earliest World Cup memory?
Coming home from school and sitting on the sitting room floor watching Brazil scrape past Scotland in 1998.
2. Who’s going to win it all? And name second, third and fourth also.
Winners: Brazil. Runners-up: France. Third: Belgium. Fourth: Netherlands.
3. Who’s going to be the surprise package of the tournament?
Belgium. In that this group of players might just manage to go out with a bang.
4. Who will be top scorer?
Kylian Mbappe — PSG’s director of football can come to the fore for his country.
5. Which big team are you expecting to underperform or flop?
Portugal.
6. RTÉ, BBC, or ITV?
RTÉ. Social media will be ideal to catch up on the banter content from the British lads.
7. What are you most looking forward to and least looking forward to?
Most: Watching Kevin de Bruyne and Luka Modric. And Lisandro Martinez.
Least: Ronaldo’s post-tournament exit interview with Piers Morgan.
8. Sum up the 2022 World Cup in one sentence.
Disturbing and shameful in equal measure.
Gavan Casey
1. What’s your earliest World Cup memory?
Taping over my dad’s VHS recording of the 1998 World Cup final while he was out cutting the grass, probably to record Biker Mice from Mars or something. He took it well considering I probably ruined his month. I properly tuned in from the start of Ireland’s 2002 qualification campaign, and my first memory of the World Cup proper is being told by my third class teacher, Diarmuid Murphy, that Senegal had beaten France in the opening game — and hoping to Jesus that my mum had remembered to tape it for me.
2. Who’s going to win it all? And name second, third and fourth also.
Argentina to win it: as we saw with Italy in the Euros, the knack of simply not losing can become quite a powerful piece of muscle memory in international football, and Lionel Messi’s quietly impressive form this season would suggest he’s primed to pull a ‘Zidane 2006′. I have them beating Belgium in the final. Denmark-Brazil is how the third-placed play-off shapes up in my bracket and, bearing in mind how difficult Brazil will find it to care at that point, I’ll lean towards our old pals for third.
3. Who’s going to be the surprise package of the tournament?
I don’t think the Danes would be surprise semi-finalists so I’ll go with Senegal to get out of their group even though Sadio Mané misses out.
4. Who will be top scorer?
Messi.
5. Which big team are you expecting to underperform or flop?
Portugal will probably make a balls of it.
6. RTÉ, BBC, or ITV?
I’ll flick around based on panels. I enjoy RTÉ’s whole crew of presenters and pundits, really, and I’ll keep an eye on Roy whenever he’s on ITV. The likes of Vincent Kompany, Didier Drogba, Pablo Zabaleta and Gilberto Silva will draw me over to the Beeb the odd time, I’m sure.
7. What are you most looking forward to and least looking forward to?
I’m really intrigued to see the extent to which players use their platform — and the likes of goal celebrations, especially — to make political statements on Qatari soil. I’m thinking along the lines of Leon Goretzka’s ‘loveheart’ gesture towards the Hungarian fans at the Euros, for example, which I personally thought was fantastic. There might be a few more of those.
I’m not looking forward to hearing that ‘sport and politics should be kept separate’ when, in reality, international sport and politics are congenitally intertwined and this entire tournament is a prototypical example of that very fact. (Russia are banned, by the way).
8. Sum up the 2022 World Cup in one sentence…
It’s probably not coming home, at least.
Ciarán Kennedy
1. What’s your earliest World Cup memory?
France 98. Bergkamp v Argentina. Ronaldo, Zidane. Footix. Dario G. As good as it gets.
2. Who’s going to win it all? And name second, third and fourth also.
The head says Brazil, the heart Argentina. Germany and Denmark to reach the semi-finals.
3. Who’s going to be the surprise package of the tournament?
Our dear friends, Denmark.
4. Who will be top scorer?
Messi, but Harry Kane could bag a bucketful in the group stages.
5. Which big team are you expecting to underperform or flop?
Belgium, and France just might have another implosion brewing.
6. RTÉ, BBC, or ITV?
RTÉ, with a quick flick over to BBC for the last 10 minutes of any England game. ITV on record for Roy.
7. What are you most looking forward to and least looking forward to?
Most: One last burst of Messi magic, closely followed by the Qatari sweets Gavin Cooney brings back for the office.
Least: Ex-pros talking up the Qatar experience. I lasted about 10 minutes of Gary Neville’s Overlap Qatar special. Tone deaf.
8. Sum up the 2022 World Cup in one sentence…
A deep sense of unease I expect to become more familiar with in the coming years.
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