We are counting down the days until the start of the World Cup. Tonight at 21pm, the 23rd World Cup will officially open with the match between Mexico and South Africa.
And so we enter the final round of group presentations. Next up is Group K, which consists of Portugal, Colombia, DR Congo and Uzbekistan.
PORTUGAL
This will be Cristiano Ronaldo's last chance to fulfill his dream and reach the much-desired "golden goddess".
The Portuguese's greatest success at the World Cup was third place in 1966 and fourth in Germany in 2006. Apart from that, they have never made it beyond the quarter-finals.
They reached the World Cup without any major problems. In qualifying group F, they won 13 points and were first, three points ahead of Ireland.
The team is bursting with quality in all lines. Judging by the qualifications, Diogo Costa should be in goal. The center backs are Ruben Dias and Renato Veiga, and the full backs are probably Nelson Semedo and the safe Nuno Mendes.
Coach Roberto Martinez will have a hard time "respecting" everyone in the midfield and offensive parts of the team. Everyone will want a starting role, and logically not everyone will be able to start the games.
It seems that Vitinha, Bernardo Silva and Bruno Fernandes are "nailed" in the middle, with Cristiano Ronaldo in attack.
Portugal's World Cup campaign begins on June 17th with a match against DR Congo at 19 p.m.
COLOMBIA
Always an interesting team, potentially dangerous, but never concrete enough at world championships.
The "Cafeteros" will participate in the World Cup for the seventh time in history, and the furthest they reached was in Brazil in 2014, when they played in the quarterfinals.
They were safe in the qualifiers - 28 points for third place with a goal difference of 28:18.
There is no doubt - the biggest star and best player in Colombia at the moment is Luis Diaz. He had a great season at Bayern. In 51 games in all competitions, he scored 26 goals and shared 23 assists.
Of course, everyone is particularly moved by James Rodriguez, who was Colombia's main player in Brazil in the aforementioned 2014.
The first match at this year's World Cup will be played by the Argentine expert Nestor Lorenzo's team on June 18th at 4:00 AM against Uzbekistan.
DR CONGO
An interesting African team that no one in Group K will be able to easily beat.
They have only played in the World Cup once before, under the name Zaire. It was in 1974, and their rival in the group was, among others, Yugoslavia, which they convincingly defeated - 9:0.
It was a long road for Sebastien Desabres' team to reach the World Cup. In the qualifiers, they finished second in Group B, just behind Senegal, which sent them to the play-offs. In the African play-offs, they eliminated Cameroon and Nigeria, and then followed that up with an intercontinental play-off where they beat Jamaica.
Only two players from the DR Congo squad play outside Europe. The biggest stars are certainly Cedric Bakambu (Betis), Joan Wiss (Newcastle), Aaron Wan-Bissaka (West Ham), Axel Tuanzebe (Burnley) and Chancel Mbemba (Lille), who is also the captain.
They have played two friendly matches since the beginning of June and have remained winless. They drew with Denmark (0:0) and lost to Chile (2:1).
UZBEKISTAN
Another debutant at this World Cup.
The road to the World Cup began in the second phase of the Asian qualifiers, where, thanks to a lower goal difference, they took second place in Group E, right behind Iran.
In the third round of the qualifiers, they were again in a group with Iran and were again behind them. Fortunately for Uzbekistan, this time, second place in the group secured their ticket to the World Cup.
On the field, the team's biggest stars are Abdukodir Husanov and Eldor Somurodov. Apart from them, only Abosek Fajzulaev plays on European soil, more precisely in Başakşehir.
Still, the impression is that the biggest name in football is sitting on the Uzbekistan bench - former Ballon d'Or winner Fabio Cannavaro.
Although they lost both friendlies before the World Cup, they played well. Canada beat them 2-0 and the Netherlands beat them 2-1.
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